The Settlers (15)
Directed by Felipe Galvez
★★★★

 
WRITER-DIRECTOR Felipe Galvez’s impressive yet unnerving debut western chronicles the genocide of Chile’s Selk’nam people as it skilfully melds historical fact with myth and fiction. 

The film follows a British soldier Alexander MacLennan (Mark Stanley), an American mercenary Bill (Benjamin Westfall) and a mixed race sniper Segundo (Camilo Arancibia) who, at the turn of the 20th century, embark on an expedition across the Tierra del Fuego at the behest of a wealthy landowner (Alfredo Castro). He orders them to secure a pathway for his livestock through the Selk’nam people’s land. This means slaughtering all native Americans in their path. 
 
When Segundo realises what their real mission is, to eradicate the indigenous population, he cannot bring himself to do it. He feels conflicted as he does not wish to rape or harm any of the Selk’nam people, unlike his ruthless companions. They show no mercy to the Selk’nam and they sexually assault a young woman in a devastating scene. 
 
This is a visually arresting western-cum-thriller that examines colonialism and the lies and greed that it is founded on. It is brutal, and it is a harrowing watch. 
 
The film mixes real and fictional characters as it investigates the paradox of how the history of a population that has all but disappeared has become a part of a national narrative. 
 
Beautifully acted against the backdrop of the stunning Chilean landscape it provides an uncompromising look into the past in order to understand modern-day Chile. 
Out in cinemas February 9

Occupied City (12A)
Directed by Steve McQueen 
★★

 
ACADEMY award-winning film-maker Steve McQueen provides a unique cinematic glimpse of the Holocaust through hypnotic visual imagery and narration in this epic documentary which takes a lot of stamina to sit through at almost four-and-a-half hours long. 

It does include a 15-minute intermission though. 
 
It is based on his wife and historian Bianca Stigter’s rigorously researched book Atlas of an Occupied City – Amsterdam 1940-1945. Shot during the pandemic in 2020 it goes to 130 locations in the Dutch city to uncover what happened there during the Nazi occupation. 
 
Devoid of archive footage or interviews of any kind, the film focuses solely on modern-day images which deliberately do not marry up to the detailed narration voiced by Melanie Hyams. The words, however, are unfortunately soporific. Her monotone delivery isn’t enough to keep you engaged and fully alert over the four-hour-plus marathon monologue.