‘The Settlers’ Review: Writing the History of Modern Chile, in Blood

“The Settlers” tracks MacLennan and his small, uneasy group across Tierra del Fuego, which stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and includes both present-day Argentina and Chile. It’s a still, lonely expanse characterized by grassy plains, jagged mountains and a smattering of forest, and certainly part of the movie’s initial allure is its natural setting. In the early 16th century, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan named the region Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) after the bonfires set by native people; several centuries later, Charles Darwin traversed the body of water at the region’s base that came to be called Beagle Channel.

The Chilean director Felipe Gálvez, who wrote the script with Antonia Girardi, makes strategic use of the area’s beauty from the start, using its wonders to seduce you and hold you rapt even as the story grows progressively grim. Divided into sections, it opens with the sounds of drums and an elliptical quote from Thomas More’s 1516 satire, “Utopia,” emblazoned on a blood-red intertitle. A devourer of men, Menéndez is a wealthy Spanish colonizer and rancher who wants to control everything in sight at the expense of everyone. He is the power building the fence, enclosing the land and helping write the history of modern Chile.

Gálvez’s work here is by turns blunt and subtle, and very assured. (It’s his feature debut.) As the camera sticks close to Segundo, a question mark of a character and uneasy moral compass, the story progresses elliptically with pockets of quiet, naturalistic dialogue and a sense of mounting outrage. A sadist, MacLennan also proves to be a self-interested dissembler; Bill is largely a blunt instrument as well as an emblem of American imperialism. Together they ride across the country until they spot a column of smoke rising from some woods where they find a group of Indigenous people that they quickly and mercilessly slaughter.

The men press on, continuing a journey that by turns dips into Joseph Conrad territory and takes a freaky detour into Cormac McCarthy land. At one point, the three encounter a group of men serving as the protective detail for a surveyor; later, they stumble upon a band of near-feral renegade soldiers. The most harrowing scene, though, in this very fine movie takes place years later inside a hushed, lavishly appointed mansion with gilt flourishes and a piano where Don José and his adult daughter (Adriana Stuven) entertain a priest and a visiting politician as an Indigenous maid stands against a wall. “We’ve killed many savages,” the daughter says with a firm voice and perfect manners, “and will continue, if necessary.”

The Settlers
Not rated, but there are disturbing scenes of murder and rape. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters.