"THIS started a long time ago." So speaks the hero of this hypnotic southern melodrama from young Arkansan director Jeff Nichols.
The economically named Son is referring to the origins of a family dispute that threatens to bring mayhem to a shabby rural hamlet. Some years back, Son's hitherto dissolute dad deserted his three boys, turned to Jesus and married a middle-class woman with a substantial farm.
When the old man dies, Son ambles across to the funeral - everyone ambles in Shotgun Stories - denounces the deceased and spits on his bier. His half-brothers promise revenge.
It started a long, long time ago. Indeed, the heavy portentousness that hangs over this extraordinary film encourages us to speculate that the quarrel may have originated in some neglected corner of The Book of Isaiah.
There is little mention of God in the film, but the actors' painfully slow delivery and the righteous purity of their anger suggests a universe untainted by contemporary frivolity. This is, perhaps, a dispute that has been going on forever (and will continue as long as strong men walk the streets of Arkansas).
Some viewers may find the picture a little too self-consciously arch: everything moves at the pace of sap running down a sun-crisped tobacco plant; the characters bring focused solemnity to even the most light-hearted of lines. But Nichols has paid attention to the movies of David Gordon Green, his distinguished producer, and, like that film-maker, he allows a curious poetry to emerge from the leisurely rhythms of poor, hot places.
The director is assisted by consistently brilliant performances from his fine lead actors. Douglas Ligon is desperately touching as Son's tubby brother, who, though viewed as a coward by the rest of the family, emerges as the most rational thinker among the combatants.
The film belongs, however, to the reliably strange Michael Shannon. A familiar face from character roles in such films as The Woodsman and World Trade Center, Shannon somehow manages to bring both fragility and menace to the troubled Son.
Imagine (if you dare) a combination of Willem Dafoe and Fred Gwynne, and you will get some sense of Shannon's peculiar energy.
