- Based on the diary of Sara Charity Karker. In 1874 three young women set off for Nebraska in search of fun, idealism and family ties. Over the next 12 years the harshness of the frontier, the lawlessness, work, illness and childbirth, wreak havoc in their lives.—Anonymous
- "The ways of Providence are dark and mysterious to us. On the frontier one's life is touched by many and our destiny is often determined by strangers..." from the diary of Sara Charity Fulgham Karker, 1878
PLAINSONG is a poetic evocation of life as it was on the American frontier. The film's unusual narrative traces the lives of three women swept into a cycle of change and survival as each moves towards her separate destiny.
Opening with a sepia tinted prologue reminiscent of an old silent film, it tells the story of Sara Charity Karker's untimely death at the hands of a man seeking revenge for the murder of his partner twelve years earlier. PLAINSONG then shifts to a color flashback as it moves backward in time to recount Sara's story.
Twelve years earlier on a train bound for the frontier, Sara Charity meets two women making the same journey as she. Though their destinations are the same, their dreams and hopes are very different. Sara Charity has come West to care for her brother Ralph; Mary Jessup hopes to marry and make a new life for herself on the frontier; and Trija Howland brings a dream of the romance and adventure she has read about in newspapers and magazines.
The three women find their lives entangled as all are exposed to the hardships of life in the vast wilderness. Marriages, births and deaths comprise their life cycle and each experiences change as they are forced to grow in order to survive. Caught in a conflict between local ranchers and homesteaders, the three women find their lives forever altered by a sequence of events which touch their lives in swift succession.
The resolution of these unusual events is revealed in the film's conclusion as Sara accepts the role which will ultimately lead to her tragic destiny.
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