(**) 

Men on horseback is an allure that’s attracted audiences to westerns for decades. Chilean director Felipe Gálvez Haberle, with a misguided script co-written with Antonia Girardi, tries his hand at the genre—to mixed results.

The filmmaker has found a worthy premise, examining the genocide of Native Americans in his country. But in the process revictimizes them. This dated, injudicious approach is similar to the experiences Afro Americans endured back in the day. Back when white filmmakers retold Black history from their point of view without a feel for the people maligned or their spirit. E.g., both Mississippi Burning and Ghosts of Mississippi neglected to show Black people fighting for their rights. Similarly, this film fails to capture the Native American point of view, their pushback or essence.

In 1893, Segundo (Camilo Arancibia), a twentysomething mestizo (mixed race person, Indigenous/European) is a ranch hand. He is horrified at the cruelty he sees as he and other workers build fences on an expansive tundra. The ruthlessness is administered by his boss, former Boer War English army captain Alexander MacLennan (Mark Stanley, Run). The captain is not opposed to shooting workers dead who become injured on the job and can’t continue their labors. They all work for the coldhearted Spaniard José Menédez (Alfredo Castro), who has been granted property rights by the State and has become a land baron who lords over vast portions of the country.

Menédez wants MacLennan to establish a safe route to the coast for his massive herds of sheep. He instructs the captain to kill all the Onas (Native Americans of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago) who stand in his way. MacLennan drafts Segundo, a marksmen, who will accompany him on the killing spree. The very suspicious Menédez orders him to add an American mercenary (Benjamin Westfall) to the deadly mission. The interloper doesn’t trust the mixed-race Chilean: “Half Indian. Half White. You never know who they’re gonna shoot.”  

Haberle gets the accoutrements of the film right. Simone D’Arcangelo’s grainy, smeared-colored cinematography, Sebastián Orgambide’s production design and Muriel Parra’s roughhewn costumes recreate the period to a T. Chile’s vast geography is hypnotic to view. The script’s characters and their dynamics add to the era’s hard realism look. The no-frills direction pulls you into the primitive, evil instincts that drive the colonialists. Audience will feel lost in the moment, and aware there is no law and order as they watch grassroots genocide. 

This is where you question Haberle’s plan. Is there a point to telling this story without giving Native American’s one ounce of dignity? Wasn’t there one true life event where the Indigenous people fought back against their slaughter, even if they didn’t prevail? That would be a more interesting storyline than what’s presented. Here, Segundo has moments where he could stop the antagonists’ killing games. But the script gives him no heart. No strength. He becomes a passive actor in his own drama. Instead, this film explores Spain’s manifest destiny and how it annihilated populations. But that’s not good enough. 

Scenes of indigenous people being slaughtered. An indigenous woman being suffocated. A superfluous gay rape thrown in for good measure. These sequences epitomize bad judgement that turns into trauma porn.

Haberle may have had good intentions, but he lost his way. While indicting Europeans for what they did he also maltreats Native Americans in the process. Their fighting spirit is completely absent. That’s a mistake. A big one. 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3_hcR2tHOk

For more information about the New York Film Festival go to https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2023/. 
Visit Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.