With East of Wall, filmmaker Kate Beecroft has placed a familiar story in an unusual setting.
Part true to life, part fictionalized, the movie presents a single mother trying to provide for her children against many odds.
The woman, Tabatha Zimiga (playing a fictionalized version of herself), is a horse whisperer on a 3,000-acre ranch in the badlands of South Dakota, where she trains wild horses for sale to regional buyers. She is also the caretaker of 17 children: some her own, but most the children of others. They provide a labor resource to the ranch.
Financially the ranch is in trouble, and soon into the film a rich outsider, portrayed by actor Scoot McNairy, offers to buy Zimiga out. But the horse ranch is the family’s only known life, and the story centers on the pull between the possibilities of a sale and the desire to hold on to its lifestyle.
The personalities and struggles of Zimiga and her fast-riding/trainer daughter (Porshia Zimiga, also playing a version of herself) are filmed in documentary-like style. Short, skewed scenes depict the characters, the horses, and the beauty of the Badlands and its prairies.
The elder Zimiga, with one side of her head shaved, is big, tattooed, pierced, mascaraed, and sweet. The actor Jennifer Ehle portrays her mother, a movie-genre tough broad who witnesses the struggles of her daughter and grandchildren. She steals every scene she enters.
Beecroft has built on the real-life conditions of this family’s existence, adding the fictional issue of a possible land sale and the stress that possibility might add to an already tough existence.
The soundtrack is soulful, and mirrors the mood of the film’s scenes. Original music by Lukas Frank and Daniel Meyer O’Keeffe is worth hearing on its own.
The story is an old one, but real women running a horse ranch in a male society is not. That and the majestic South Dakota landscape make for a unique film.
Editor’s Note: East of Wall is now playing at The SLO Film Center at the Palm Theatre.