With The Settlers (2023) director Felipe Gálvez Haberle makes his debut in style. He conceives a work that is pure cinematic poetry but can hit with devastating force. The Chilean addresses a part of his country’s history that is rarely commented on, the massacre of the Selk’nam people. These indigenous people, known as the Onas, lived in Tierra del Fuego from very ancient times until their massacre began at the end of the 19th century.

Landowner José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro) orders an expedition by former British Army captain Alexander MacLennan (Mark Stanley). MacLennan is accompanied by Segundo (Camilo Arancibia), a mestizo, and Bill (Benjamin Westfall), an American mercenary. The three men embark on a journey through the confines of Tierra del Fuego in what appears to be an exploration to delimit Mr. Menéndez’s lands. The true purpose of the mission was the extermination of the Onas who, in the eyes of the powerful landowner, represented an obstacle to his companies.

The Settlers from Patagonia

Gálvez decides on the tone of the westerns to tell the story of The Settlers. This is not the Wild West that Hollywood taught us, but the desolate, desert, and cold environment that our protagonists go through is also no man’s land. We are faced with a film that honors the codes of the genre, the grandeur of the landscapes and those men riding into the unknown make us evoke those immortal moments of the classic cowgirls. Simone D’Arcangelo’s camera finds in these vast spaces the perfect canvas to draw epic sunsets. While photography dazzles us with its beauty, history destroys us with its crudeness.

The Settlers dissect its central characters and in this way, we dig deep into their motivations, we can remove their multiple layers and connect with them. That Menéndez played by a magnificent Alfredo Castro is a perfect antagonist. MacLennan, cold and threatening, Bill, a being moved only by greed and Segundo, a man marked inside and who has to bear the pain of exterminating his own lineage. These three men become the vehicle for the director to expose his social criticism and force us to reflect, question ourselves, and shake ourselves with each sequence.

Few films have the narrative force of The Settlers, here the silences are as eloquent as the dialogues, the landscape becomes another character and each sequence surpasses the one that precedes it. In the end, Rosa awaits us, with only a few minutes on screen, a few words, and a look that annihilates us.