FIRST COW
“He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married.”
—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
elly Reichardt’s begins with a marriage portrait. Not the conventional image of a bride and groom sharing an ephemeral embrace, but something more peculiar, indeterminate, and ambiguous. A young woman (Alia Shawkat) roaming the brush outside of modern-day Portland happens upon this sight when her dog picks at something beneath the surface, leading her to the remains of two men. The grave is unmarked, the names and fates of the individuals unknown. Someone seems to have gone through the trouble of burying these men, whose skeletons lie side by side in repose. To a modern
