In his debut feature film, director Felipe Gálvez recounts, in the style of a western film, the massacre of the native people today called Selkman, in the context of the wool businesses in 1901.
Quite strong scenes, beautiful landscapes and a painful historical background characterize the unique Chilean western “The Colonists”, where three unfriendly guys clear the land for the businesses of a wool businessman. In other words, they are killing the native inhabitants. The action takes place in Tierra del Fuego, 1901, and refers to the long genocide of the Selknam people, which we called Ona.. They say that when the whites settled there were about 4,000 onas. At the beginning of the 20th century, only 783 remained, almost all of them refugees in the Salesian missions commanded by Monsignor Giuseppe Fagnano.
Main genocidaires, the Romanian Julius Popper, gold seeker turned boss on the Argentine side, and, on the Chilean side, Alexander Cameron, a New Zealander, foreman of a Mauritz Braun ranch, and the worst of all, Alexander McLennan, a Scot, ( a) El Chancho Colorado, foreman of a ranch owned by José María Menéndez and his wife María Behety. El Chancho, who was once a non-commissioned officer in the British Army, died in 1917, his boss in 1918, and Cameron only in 1950, peaceful in his little house in Hurlingham, province of Buenos Aires, just 23 km away. from San Fernando, where Adolf Eichmann lived.
The film we now see is a reduced fiction of those horrors. Reduced for economic, narrative, ideological and stomach reasons. In it, José Menéndez gives the usual assignment to McLennan (who here has the rank of former officer of the Empire) and a Texan Indian hunter, both with a dark past and bad habits. A son of a Mapuche and a white woman will serve as their guide and collaborator. He won’t be completely clean either, but the camera takes his side. All in all, he is the least unpleasant person of the trio.
A little slow at the beginning, schematic throughout, logically anti-employer and unnecessarily anticlerical, The work will become increasingly tense, disturbing, and the characters increasingly outrageous. And the epilogue contributes. Photography, music, sounds, immensities, cartoons, everything contributes to creating an atmosphere of nerves even before seeing something concrete.
Director, Felipe Gálvez, editor graduated from the Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. He already has several awards for his short films (one at the Bafici 2009), this is his first feature, and to do so he gained the enthusiasm of producers from seven countries, achieved an international technical team, and an international cast: Alfredo Castro as the Asturian Menéndez, Mark Stanley, Benjamín Westfall, Sam Spruell, Camilo Arancibia, Argentines Luis Machin, Agustín Rittano as a captain of the Argentine Army and Mariano Llinás, who in addition to collaborating on the script plays the expert Francisco Moreno (not a whim, in 1901 Moreno was in those parts studying the possible limits between Argentina and Chile). Production design, another Argentine, Sebastián Orgambide.
“The Colonists” (Chile-Argentina, 2023). Direction: F. Gálvez; Performers: A. Castro, M. Stanley, B. Westfall, S. Spruell, M. Llinás.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
