They say he can smell an Indian from miles away

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2024

#34 : Los Colonos (The Settlers)

Europe’s exploitation of Tierra del Fuego at the turn of the 20th century is told in an unsparingly bloody drama-thriller by first-time director Felipe Gálvez Haberle.

OK, we're going to give them Spanish language film-makers another go with our first film from Chile - and, given the subject matter, I'll be very surprised if this is as boring as the last film.

OK, stop me if you've heard this one before - a Scotsman, an American and a Chilean head into the South American wilderness for some weird reason to do with sheep. They soon realise why it's called a wilderness - there's pretty much nothing there. The Scotsman is Alexander MacLennan (Mark Stanley) who seems to be a homicidal lunatic ex-serviceman, the American is Bill (Benjamin Westfall) who seems to be a slightly saner mercenary and the Chilean is Segundo (Camilo Arancibia) who doesn't say enough for you to form an opinion of him, but he is prone to bizarre hallucinations. And none of them trust each other in the slightest (and with good reason!). 

Fortunately, they do bump into some people on their travels (otherwise it would be very dull), but the interactions are pretty random and savage, until we get to a point that they ride off into the sunset for no obvious reason. And then, for no obvious reason, we skip forward seven years where a load of people get together and basically say "Jeez, that MacLennan was a mad bastard, wasn't he?". 

The End. 

Errr - excuse me?!?

For some weird reason, I'm not all that up on my Chilean history, but I am prepared to believe this covers a culturally significant time in that country (although, it's certainly covered somewhat obliquely). However, I could make a film which covers a culturally significant time in this country (do you remember that time we won the Women's Rugby World Cup?) but that would not make it a good film.

It wouldn't make it a bad film though, provided I paid attention to things like framing and lighting the scenes or making sure things were in focus - but, for his own reasons, Felipe Gálvez Haberle chooses not to do these things. I guess you could make the argument that he's aiming for realism (or something) but there are also times when the dialogue is hard to make out above the sound of the wind, which feels like a step too far on the realism front.

The other even more obvious odd choice is the use of English and Spanish languages - which seems perfectly acceptable given they're the first language of the various characters. But it appears that all characters are fluent in both languages and they just switch between them whenever they feel like it - which is all particularly bizarre.

There's also an odd technical choice to discuss - there's a strange aspect ratio in play. Yes, it's 1.5:1 - you weren't expecting that, were you? It's best known as the aspect ratio for 35mm photographic film but there are very few films that use it - The Apprentice from '24 is the only one I'd heard of before. 

So, that's all the whinging out of the way - what have I got to say about it that's actually nice? Well, the South American landscapes on display are absolutely amazing - they're not always framed the best or they're in the dark, but when you can see them they look super cool. The acting, within the context of the story, is perfectly fine (if somewhat over the top in places). It was also only 100 minutes long, so I was a lot more tolerant of it than I might have been otherwise. So, as a result, I also, possibly unexpectedly, found it quite an interesting film despite not a lot happening - you always suspected something was going to kick off at some point, but you didn't know what was going to cause it so you were paying attention.

But, when it came down to it, it just fizzled out into nothingness in a most bizarre fashion - if you're up on your Chilean history then maybe it makes some kind of sense to you, but it made absolutely no sense to me and was surprisingly poor on the technical front. However, it still wasn't as boring as the last film...

#35 - Slooooow cinema