Brimstone

 

I don't think it's a coincidence that Amazon Prime is streaming Dutch writer / director Martin Koolhoven's film from 2016 Brimstone.

In it Guy Pearce plays a seemingly invincible pietist preacher in 19th century South Dakota. The preacher menaces and tortures his wife (Carice Van Houten) before she commits suicide in front of the congregation, scourges and rapes his daughter (Emilia Jones), stalks her across miles of wilderness for years and ends up being immolated by the same adult daughter (Dakota Fanning) before she commits suicide by drowning. (All of this is told in four chapters in more or less reverse chronology until the final fateful confrontation.)

I'm leaving out a number of relevant plot points but their inclusion would be as sadistically excessive as this film, which clocks in at 2.5 hours.

Still, the movie is not just about men treating women badly, although it's mainly about that. It is also about how religion is used to empower and to neuter, to elevate and to terrorize.

In one scene, early in the film, Fanning's Liz, a midwife, attempts to deliver a baby but there are complications and to save the life of the mother she excises the fetus using forceps. The woman's husband blames Liz's sinfulness for the failed delivery and demands that she be punished.

It doesn't come to that -- then -- but the scene establishes a shocking, bewildering tone and, chillingly, reflects today's reality, where the divine is used to shore up men's vanity while undermining women's worth.

Brimstone is a punishing, difficult watch that I had to stretch across several days to keep from feeling overwhelmed.