LATIN AMERICAN VISIONARY CINEMA: Jauja

2015, 108min
Argentina

Language: Spanish w/English subtitles

Director: Lisandro Alonso

The SNF Parkway is proud to present Latin American Visionary Cinema, a month-long exploration of exciting work drawn from important voices in Latin American film over the past decade. This series of twelve films spans many genres, represents 10 countries, and includes many titles that had little or no theatrical distribution in the United States. The Latin American Visionary Cinema series is presented by PNC Bank.

JAUJA: The vision of Lisandro Alonso, the blinding photography of Kaurismäki’s regular cameraman and the use of actor/musician Viggo Mortensen combined to ensure a magic result. A Danish military engineer sets off in 19th-century Patagonia looking for his missing daughter. A mysterious masterpiece. Nominated for The Big Screen Award.

The Argentinian Lisandro Alonso, with the poet Fabian Casas, wrote a story about ‘Jauja’, an earthly paradise sought in vain for centuries because everyone who looked for it got lost on the way. In this case, it’s about the Danish captain/fortune hunter Dinessen (Danish-born, reluctant Hollywood star Viggo Mortensen) who, at the end of the 19th century, joined the Argentine infantry with his 14-year-old daughter Inge. When she runs off with a young soldier, Dinessen endlessly roams the pampas of Patagonia on the trail of a very thin dog.
The stunningly photographed Jauja is both incomparable and intriguing. It’s no surprise that Mortensen, who also produced this ‘road movie’ and made the music, describes Alonso as a contemporary Tarkovsky.

Jauja, shot in 4:3 and co-produced by the Dutch Ilse Hughan, received the film critics’ best film award for the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Festival.