Tierra del Fuego, Republic of Chile, 1901. José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro) is entrusted with land by the state. In order to open up the route to the Atlantic, this wealthy Spanish landowner hires three horsemen, ostensibly to demarcate the land. As the expedition progresses, Segundo (Camilo Arancibia), a Chilean of mixed race, realizes that he is in fact in charge of emptying the land of its indigenous population and "civilizing" this immense, fertile territory, under the urgent orders of Lieutenant MacLennan (Sam Spruell), a bloodthirsty, lawless Briton, and an American mercenary.
With The Settlers, presented in the Un Certain Regard selection at the Cannes 2023 Festival, Felipe Gálvez returns to fiction to bear witness to the massacre of the Onas Indian tribe in Tierra del Fuego by the white aristocracy. The Chilean filmmaker criss-crosses this vast land of rare beauty with long desert panoramas in which the three horsemen move in Indian thread under a sky reminiscent of some of the high paintings by Scottish artist Peter Graham. Behind this picture-postcard image, however, lies a genocide of unprecedented violence, recounted through real testimonies, and indecently ignored by official history.
By choosing to tell the story from the point of view of the colonists (right down to the title), Felipe Gálvez plays with the codes of the Western in a sober manner - only a few blood-red, large-format headlines, referring in turn to "the red pig", "the king of white gold" and "the half-breed", fill the frame and color the montage. Buoyed by a galloping score with Morriconian overtones in its first third, the film forcefully explores the traumatic memory of a society built on theextermination of a people, whatever the cost in bloodshed and lies.
December 2023 cinema releases: list of films in theatres and opening times near you
Christmas and New Year's Eve are fast approaching, and to relieve the stress of last-minute shopping, why not take refuge in the cinema? Here's our calendar of cinema releases for December 2023! [Read more]
Drama is a popular genre with movie lovers, and there are plenty of films representing it in cinemas. If you're not sure what to choose for your movie night, we have several titles to recommend. Follow the guide! [Read more]
Not sure which film to see today? Well, we've got plenty of films to show near you. [Read more]
December 2023 cinema releases: list of films in theatres and opening times near you
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