Jauja

      In Lisandro Alonso's Jauja a viewer is  brought into a dreamscape immediately.  The first images of  peat moss covered rocks in tide pools are a microcosm of the world the film represents.  A surreal dreamscape where a tattered army is helpless and lost in the frontier of Argentina.  A land where a colonel offers a horse as a trade for the only woman in a 100 mile radius.  A place where men are swallowed by a merciless desert.  An area where a renegade former colonel dresses in women's clothes and hunts humans in the hinterland.

Oh how refreshing that ambiguity is served up in all it's forms, but here the film never goes over the line.  The film Jauja is not El Topo or Inland Empire.  However, the picture is a traditional Western in many respects.  The storyline is basic in structure.  A ruthless frontier, a missing daughter, and a father that wishes to track her down.  A man looking for his daughter in the desert is the rudimentary story.  However along this journey many strange things start happening.

The film looks staggeringly beautiful and the landscapes are breathtaking.   Viggo Mortensen is perfect as the lead.  He portrays a Danish father with poise and grace.  His quest for his daughter is quite an adventure.  The score of the film is Spanish guitar done by Viggo himself and it has a haunting and relaxing quality.  The locations of Patagonia in Argentina are unlike anything I have seen before.  They are remote and extraordinary.  The film is the kind of film that lingers on a viewer long after the red credits.

Many thanks to the hits from Italy, Argentina, France, Russia, Turkey, and Indonesia!  Long live global cinema!