Christopher Rhoten
Early on in Jethro Waters’ horror-comedy-satire Gunfighter Paradise, a gun is fired, and a shell falls to the ground as a musical, chime-like sound reverberates. Church bells are brought to mind, but since we have just watched a montage in which a man packs gunpowder while gazing at a picture of Jesus, we are already inclined to believe that such a blunt metaphor must carry some deeper significance. Don’t overthink it.
This tension makes Waters’ film an interesting watch, and it is an idea reflected in the story as well. Aptly named protagonist Stoner (played by Waters under the pseudonym ‘Braz Cubas’) has a hard time distinguishing what’s real from what isn’t, what’s important, and what’s fake. Stoner is a hunter from the South who has inherited a mysterious briefcase said to contain $7 million, courtesy of his uncle. Unrelatedly, God has begun speaking to him.
As Stoner prepares his ammunition over the opening credits, a deep, dark intonation that sounds a little more like Satan commands Stoner to “take care of business.” The Southerner returns home to North Carolina, only to disturb his old friends with his camo face paint and discover that his venerated mother has recently passed away, leaving a cryptic riddle behind. Meanwhile, another, even freakier nutcase is coming to claim the cash.
As I alluded to, the Coen-esque mystery surrounding the inheritance and the bizarre, spiritual psychosis Stoner experiences will not immediately play as two pieces of a larger puzzle, if ever. There is a great moment where Stoner corrects a friend who tries to see a connection between the two. Waters has indeed named the Coen Brothers as an influence on the film, but also surrealist masters such as Luis Buñuel. The skeletal plot of Gunfighter Paradise is mostly a shell to encase surreal imagery and dreamlike hallucinations, as Stoner—possibly suffering from PTSD—drifts deeper into his spiritual delusions.
There are two elements that ground Gunfighter Paradise. One is the humor. The film has a sense of humor so deadpan that, frankly, it is hard to tell what is supposed to be funny and what is the result of inexperience. Case in point, the entire cast is nearly all first-time actors who are friends of the director. In either case, such uncertainty suits the film, and more obvious attempts to highlight the absurdity of Stoner’s situation suit it even better. Stoner literally bangs his head on an important clue several times, and the hunter squeezes so much religious symbolism out of a story about his mother that it would put any hermeneutics course to shame.
The other solid facet of Gunfighter Paradise is narration. Stoner’s inner monologue—delivered in Waters’ deep, weary voice—is at once dark and foreboding, yet also careful, philosophical, and dryly ironic. This narration is what Jethro Waters uses to give voice to the themes of his story, which mostly concern the paradoxical nature of the South and its relationship to both God and guns. Stoner is at his most lucid when discussing his love for lethal weaponry, and recites the steps for handling his firearm like a Bible verse. But like his mother, whose letters are also heard within the film, he is a poet. With his painted face, slow elocution, and detached demeanor, Stoner resembles a Colonel Kurtz who has chosen the good book as his obsession.
Raised in North Carolina, Jethro Waters has skillfully put his finger on the pulse (trigger?) of the South and all its complexities. Stoner equates the very smell of gunpowder with nostalgic memories of campfires, even if its primary purpose is to break a commandment. A fractured soundtrack includes dark synths and soothing hymns, sometimes in the same scene. Shell casings and chandelier chimes are grasped in the same hand. Civil War reenactors own costumes for both sides. The South and its inhabitants are full of compassion and love for their neighbors, but of course, those on a different pew might not qualify as such.
Midway through Gunfighter Paradise, Stoner reflects that Southern fathers find peace in contradiction, bartering their way into heaven by raising a child they teach to be more loving than they are. The film begins with a telling quote from Mark Twain:
“Man is the most religious animal.”
It is no coincidence that a chameleon is compared to Stoner’s face paint more than once. Stoner’s quest for enlightenment is entangled in a culture that wages war with itself over the details, emblematized by an unsettling climax in which he crosses paths with someone to whom God is speaking as well.
While no multitude, the superb ending does cover a few sins. Jethro Waters’ narrative feature debut is a micro-budget production, and many (though not all) of the usual issues occasionally rear their heads. In addition to some wooden acting, a series of more esoteric shots is reused several times, and the suggestion that characters are under the influence of a mind-altering substance is achieved through a cheap halo effect. Such artifice will be easily forgiven if one is drawn into the dichotomy at the heart of the film, though it must be stressed that Gunfighter Paradise, with its rambling story and oscillating tone, is uncompromisingly off-kilter.
When told that God speaks to us all through our conscience, Stoner offers a simple rebuttal through voiceover: “I don’t really agree.” As someone who has lived my entire life in the South, I deeply admire the fearlessness with which Waters confronts the inherent duality of the region and the rise of Christo-Fascism. Though filtered through a style far removed from Hollywood, Gunfighter Paradise paints a reverent but challenging picture of America, as holy and horrifying as any. Maybe we’ve always been in the end times.
