Mainly shot in the depths of winter in inhospitable Tierra del Fuego, Théo Court’s second film is a hypnotic trip to the historic hell of Western expansionism. Around 1900, photographer Pedro (an amazing Alfredo Castro once again) travels to the southernmost part of South America, to photograph a wealthy landowner’s wedding. His client, though absent, asks him to portray his very young bride. While Pedro waits for the wedding, which keeps being postponed, he becomes increasingly obsessed with the girl and her beauty – which leads to a thorough beating.
In the meantime, he unavoidably becomes part of the tough life on society’s rugged periphery, depicted with long establishing shots. The men who work for the invisible master drink themselves stupid, kill all the game in the surrounding area and murder the local Selk’nam people. Pedro is charged with photographing it all because “we are making history here”, thereby causing the aesthete to become an eyewitness and accessory to brutal abuses of power and genocide.
Trailer
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Film details
- Chile, France, Germany, Spain
- Year
- 2019
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2020
- Length
- 100"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
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