‘The Settlers’ Review: Chile’s Brutal Colonial History is Indicted in a Visually Ravishing but Tonally Uncertain Drama
variety.comJessica Kiang The setting is Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the Americas, often called el fin del mundo, and though it is 1901 and the beginning of a new century, it certainly feels like the end of the world.
It is in this feeling — the immersive sonic and visual textures of a past in which beauty and brutality snap and snarl at each other’s heels — that director Felipe Gálvez’ debut feature excels. “The Settlers,” based on his 2018 short film of the same name, is a heady, opaque western, slow to stir but vicious as a rattlesnake when it does.
It marks a highly promising debut, albeit one marred by dialogue and performances that are not always equal to the tectonic gravitas to which this tale of colonial atrocity aspires.
The hierarchy in these contested lands is established early, and sitting at its top is ruthless landowner José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro, reliably charismatic but underused).
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