“The Settlers”: A Western Through the Pampas About the Bloody Conquest of Tierra del Fuego

The opinion of the “world” – why not

At the end of the 19th century^e and XX^e Over the centuries, the businessman José Menéndez conquered millions of hectares in Tierra del Fuego, near Chile and Argentina, with the consent of the authorities and the great dismay of the autonomous population, the Selknam Indians, who were then killed after the operation.

Born in 1983 in Paris and living in Chile, Felipe Gálvez’s first feature film deals with the appropriation of territory through the expansion of capitalism and the genocidal form this greedy race can take – as recently in the United States with Martin Scorsese Flower Moon Assassins. SettlersBrecht’s Western Through the Pampas thus fills a gap in the official history of Chile that has not really been overcome, since, for example, the large spaces that form the basis of the story are still owned by the descendants of the Menendez family.

The scene opens in 1901. Menendez (the excellent Alfredo Castro) has his land fenced as far as the eye can see and sends his foreman, Lieutenant McLennan (Mark Stanley), wearing a British uniform, to open a passage for his cattle. Atlantic. An American gunner (Benjamin Westfall) and a native assistant are sent to him for this mission. Throughout the journey, Segundo (the “Second”, played by Camilo Arancibia: a great idea for a name) is a helpless witness to the abuse and brutality committed by the whites.

Overly theoretical characters

Settlers It is very powerful from a topographical point of view: the land saturated with privatization stakes, the redrawn borders with neighboring Argentina, the silhouette of a person reflected across the territory find visible translations on the screen. On the other hand, drawing human relationships is much less convincing, since the characters here are primarily theoretical.

Each person casts himself as the embodiment of a very generic being: two masters of the colonial spirit who freely spread racist, macho and carnal statements, the Indian, a silent indigenous witness, watching the events with wide eyes. At this level of meaningful literalism, it becomes difficult for a film to really hit the mark. and the vast colonial question is very briefly reduced to its little itinerant theatre.

Still, the film serves as a second movement, with a more controlled political charge, set seven years after the events. During the government-issued reparations, an emissary (Marcelo Alonso) finds Segundo to record a statement and take a photo. A cruel and powerful moment, because the official penalty is still very similar to kidnapping, stealing an image or forcing an impossible consent. Because he saw Segundo.