Jauja

Viggo Mortensen stars in this experimental Western shot in Academy ratio. He plays a 19th-century Danish general who undertakes a gruelling physical and metaphysical journey when he pursues his runaway daughter into the rugged wilderness of Patagonia.

"While maintaining the singular visual style, languid pace, and rugged landscapes of his previous films Los Muertos and Liverpool, Jauja is Alonso's first period piece, his first film with a formal script, and the first time he has worked with professional actors. Mortensen (also one of the film's producers) plays Gunnar Dinesen...When his beloved 15-year-old daughter Ingeborg runs off with a young soldier, Dinesen mounts his horse and sets off in pursuit, desperately hoping to find her before she is caught by the notorious brigand Zuluaga, a former soldier who, like Joseph Conrad's Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, has gone native. As Dinesen's search leads him ever deeper into the wilderness, the film starts to assume a more metaphysical dimension — time and space begin to collapse as Alonso posits a cyclical, rather than linear, vision of life's journey." (Toronto International Film Festival)

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