DVD Review – Jauja (2014)

Jauja  inhabits a mysterious otherworldly land. It’s shot in 4:3 but on top of that uses a curved screen which harkens back to the early days of silent cinema. It’s a quasi-western but it’s too deliberately surreal and experimental to be remotely called a Western and has more in common with early Peter Weir like Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave. It all feels like it’s set in the world of the Aborigine concept of Dreamtime like those early Weir films despite being set in desert dreamscape of South America.

Viggo Mortensen stars as the Danish engineer/soldier Gunnar Dinesen who is hired to help the army in Argentina. His daughter (Viilbjork Agger Malling) mysteriously disappears after getting involved with a soldier. The film then becomes a dreamlike mix of John Ford’ classic Western The Searchers and Tarkovksky’s Stalker. It finally morphs into an even more bizarre climax which is left to interpretation.

The film is gorgeous in its mixture of fever dream landscapes but at the same the imagery is so old-fashioned you could imagine is coming out of the silent era. The same goes for the pacing and dialogue; its slow meditative and the dialogue when its spoken is opaque and almost seems unnecessary because the film tells it’s story completely visually. Viggo Mortensen as usual proves time and again he is his generation’s Robert De Niro and perfectly translate his dialogue in different languages without slip ups, it helps he is lived in Denmark and Argentina early in his life.

Overall Jauja is a daring piece of pure cinema as Hitchcock would call it. To make a weird comparison, it’s like the new Mad Max in the sense it will play fine without subtitles. It’s a haunting mystical film that will unravel its secrets on repeated viewings. It won’t play for everyone some will find the long static shots to be tedious to the extreme and will quickly lose interest but they are the work of Lisandro Alonso who is certainly a director to look out for in years to come.

[rating=4]
Ian Schultz

Genre: Drama, Western, World Cinema |Distributor:Soda Pictures | DVD Release Date: 8th June 2015 (UK) |Rating: 15 | Director:Lisandro Alonso | Cast:Viggo Mortensen, Ghita Nørby, Viilbjørk Malling | Buy:Jauja [DVD]

About the Author

Ian Schultz

I'm the guy who normally covers stuff released by Masters of Cinema and Arrow Video along with a sprinkling of other stuff. I love a wide range of films from European art house films to silly action films. My top 10 films are Brazil, Blue Velvet, Donnie Darko, Fight Club, Jackie Brown, Seconds, Pan's Labyrinth, Badlands, Blade Runner, The Night of the Hunter.

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