Europe’s early 20th-century exploitation of Tierra del Fuego is told in an unsparingly bloody drama-thriller by first-time director Felipe Gálvez Haberle
This almost unbearably brutal and violent western drama-thriller from first-time feature director Felipe Gálvez Haberle was a prize winner at Cannes and Chile’s official entry for best international feature at the Academy Awards. At once explicit and yet mysterious and elliptical, it dramatically recreates some of the story behind the exploitation and colonisation of Tierra del Fuego by European commercial interests and the Santiago political establishment at the beginning of the 20th century. This involved the genocidal slaughter of Indigenous peoples by the now notorious businessman José Menéndez, a kind of Latin American oligarch who had been granted land rights for sheep farming, and used mercenaries to hunt and butcher Patagonian natives; these hired killers included ex-British Army soldier Alexander MacLennan, known as the “red pig...
This almost unbearably brutal and violent western drama-thriller from first-time feature director Felipe Gálvez Haberle was a prize winner at Cannes and Chile’s official entry for best international feature at the Academy Awards. At once explicit and yet mysterious and elliptical, it dramatically recreates some of the story behind the exploitation and colonisation of Tierra del Fuego by European commercial interests and the Santiago political establishment at the beginning of the 20th century. This involved the genocidal slaughter of Indigenous peoples by the now notorious businessman José Menéndez, a kind of Latin American oligarch who had been granted land rights for sheep farming, and used mercenaries to hunt and butcher Patagonian natives; these hired killers included ex-British Army soldier Alexander MacLennan, known as the “red pig...
- 2/7/2024
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
"You never know who they are going to shoot." Mubi has debuted the official US trailer for an acclaimed Chilean indie drama titled The Settlers, originally Los Colonos in Spanish. This premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, and also played at Toronto, New York, London, & Denver Film Fests. Described as a "visceral & visionary anti-Colonialist Western." Debut writer-director Felipe Gálvez asserts himself as a revelatory new cinematic voice with The Settlers, a searing and indelible take on the Western. A mixed-race Chilean rides south on an expedition led by MacLenan, a former Boer War English captain and Bill, an American mercenary, to fence off land granted to the Spanish landowner José Menéndez. Blending historical specificity with vivid visual style, the film creates a singular immersive vision, arresting in both content and form. Set against stunning mountain landscapes, Chile's Best International Feature Film entry to the 2024 Oscars is a...
- 12/7/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
The barbaric, bloody sins of the past come to define what entities govern certain land today, carried out by conquistadors and colonizers who hide behind righteous religious falsities to denigrate an indigenous population. With his directorial debut, a hauntingly conceived Chilean western The Settlers (Los Colonos), Felipe Gálvez localizes an origin story of this horror vis-a-vis the brutal genocide of the now-extinct Selk’nam people, who were native to the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile. While spare early passages are narratively opaque and formally ornate to a distancing fault, the riveting second half––including a chilling reckoning with others occupying the desolate land and a well-executed structural gamble––brings profound expansion to this chilling story of atrocity.
Split into boldly conveyed chapters, The Settlers begins in 1901 in Chile’s Tierra de Fuego province. As commanded by the bloodthirsty José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro), a trio of explorers are sent...
Split into boldly conveyed chapters, The Settlers begins in 1901 in Chile’s Tierra de Fuego province. As commanded by the bloodthirsty José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro), a trio of explorers are sent...
- 5/26/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
An English lieutenant, an American cowboy, and a mixed-race Chilean sheepherder venture into the inhospitable limits of the Tierra de Fuego region at the southernmost tip of the South American continent—the ends of the Earth, some might call it. Under the orders of their employer, landowner José Menéndez (the always masterful Alfredo Castro), the trio’s mission is to savagely murder as many Indigenous people as they encounter in their path.
Read More: 2023 Cannes Film Festival: 21 Must-See Movies To Watch
Set in 1901, “The Settlers” (Los Colonos), a scorching Western on Chile’s blood-soaked national myth, takes aspects from the official text-book history and probes at their conveniently sanitized interpretations of how they shaped the country’s future.
Continue reading ‘The Settlers’ Is A Scorching Western That Examines Chile’s Blood-Soaked National Myth [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.
Read More: 2023 Cannes Film Festival: 21 Must-See Movies To Watch
Set in 1901, “The Settlers” (Los Colonos), a scorching Western on Chile’s blood-soaked national myth, takes aspects from the official text-book history and probes at their conveniently sanitized interpretations of how they shaped the country’s future.
Continue reading ‘The Settlers’ Is A Scorching Western That Examines Chile’s Blood-Soaked National Myth [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.
- 5/22/2023
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Playlist
There’s been a recent trend in international arthouse cinema that dates roughly back to two Argentine movies of the past decade: Lucrecia Martel’s Zama (2017) and Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja (2014).
Both films told dark tales of European colonization, and the massacres inflicted on South America’s Indigenous populations, in ways that felt altogether contemporary, eschewing traditional narratives in favor of something more enigmatic and modern. In such movies, the past was reflected through the lens of the present. The characters all wore period costumes and the sets were made to look like they dated from the epoch, but the stories being told, and the way they were being told, felt very much of our time, as if the horrors were still with us.
This trend continued, albeit in a more playful sense, in the Italian film The Tale of King Crab (2021), and in a more spiritual sense in the...
Both films told dark tales of European colonization, and the massacres inflicted on South America’s Indigenous populations, in ways that felt altogether contemporary, eschewing traditional narratives in favor of something more enigmatic and modern. In such movies, the past was reflected through the lens of the present. The characters all wore period costumes and the sets were made to look like they dated from the epoch, but the stories being told, and the way they were being told, felt very much of our time, as if the horrors were still with us.
This trend continued, albeit in a more playful sense, in the Italian film The Tale of King Crab (2021), and in a more spiritual sense in the...
- 5/22/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The common denominator between the Menéndez brothers and one Menudo band member is a grievous one.
In 1996, Lyle and Erik Menéndez were sentenced to life in prison for the murder of their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez. Throughout the sensationalized televised trial, the Beverly Hills brothers alleged that their father Jose had subjected them to years of sexual abuse, which motivated the murders. The prosecution maintained a firm argument that the boys killed José and Kitty for mere financial gain.
Now, three decades later, Peacock’s new three-part docuseries “Menéndez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” reveals Roy Rosselló’s corroborating claim that he was also sexually abused by the former RCA executive and father of the Menéndez brothers José Menendez.
Menudo was created in 1977 by Edgardo Díaz and grew to be one of the most notable boy bands of all time, attracting crowds of screaming girls like young Latin Beatles. The...
In 1996, Lyle and Erik Menéndez were sentenced to life in prison for the murder of their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez. Throughout the sensationalized televised trial, the Beverly Hills brothers alleged that their father Jose had subjected them to years of sexual abuse, which motivated the murders. The prosecution maintained a firm argument that the boys killed José and Kitty for mere financial gain.
Now, three decades later, Peacock’s new three-part docuseries “Menéndez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” reveals Roy Rosselló’s corroborating claim that he was also sexually abused by the former RCA executive and father of the Menéndez brothers José Menendez.
Menudo was created in 1977 by Edgardo Díaz and grew to be one of the most notable boy bands of all time, attracting crowds of screaming girls like young Latin Beatles. The...
- 5/2/2023
- by Sophia Scorziello
- Variety Film + TV
Convicted murderers Erik and Lyle Menéndez will serve as the focal point of the forthcoming second season of Monster, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Netflix series that delved into the horrors of Jeffrey Dahmer in its award-winning first season. Fingers crossed we don’t have a repeat of the internet thirsting over killers this time around.
The announcement trailer for the new season sets the scene as “August 20, 1989” and “Beverly Hills, CA” flash across the screen before it fades to black. Once the chilling audio subsides, a 911 dispatcher answers...
The announcement trailer for the new season sets the scene as “August 20, 1989” and “Beverly Hills, CA” flash across the screen before it fades to black. Once the chilling audio subsides, a 911 dispatcher answers...
- 5/1/2023
- by Larisha Paul
- Rollingstone.com
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