November 8, 2023Jana J. Monji

‘The Settlers’ (Los Colonos): An Unsettling View of Settlers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The revisionist Western drama “The Settlers” (in Spanish, “Los Colonos”) is a remarkable directorial debut for Felipe Gálvez Haberle who also co-wrote the script with Antonia Girardi in collaboration with Mariano Llinás. The film–a co-production between Chile, Argentina, the UK, Taiwan, France, Denmark, Sweden and Germany,  had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival (17 May 2023) where it became the first Chilean production to win the FIPRESCI Prize.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3_hcR2tHOk

The film is peripherally about the Spanish-born José Menéndez (1846-1918). That name may mean nothing to people in the US, but he was an important historic figure in this history of Argentina and Chile. He was sometimes called the King of Patagonia (el rey de la Patagonia).  As king, he was ruthless.  Chile is a long and narrow country.  You  can  see in the Britannica map  that  Tierra  del  Fuego  is  both  in  Chile  and  Argentina. In 1901, in Tierra del Fuego, there is not much to stop  this”King of the White Gold”as  the  film  designates  him. 

The film begins with a view of what seems to be scrublands, in the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. A single guanaco is seen foraging, but this lone native of the region will be replaced by “white gold,” sheep from European sources. Sheep need fences and the first men we see working are building a fence that requires wire tension. A slip up results in one White man losing an arm. The foreman, Captain Alexander McLennan (Mark Stanley), or “The Red Pig,” kills the crippled man.

With the land fenced off, the guanaco are driven away from these lands and the indigenous people, the Selk’nam, are without their primary source of food. Not understanding the concept of ownership of domestic animals or land, the starving people begin to kill the sheep. McLennan is sent on a mission, to go to the other coast, but along the way, he with a half-native sharpshooter Segundo (Camilo Arancibia) and a Mexican mercenary Bill (Chilean American Benjamin Westfall)  will be killing the indigenous people they find because Menéndez says, “One man less is not a problem; the Indians are the problem.”

Bill who supposedly can “smell an Indians for miles,” doesn’t trust Segundo. “You never know who they’re going to shoot.”

After murdering one family without provocation, they still pause so that, in a scene reminiscent of “Casualties of War,” McLennan and then Bill can rape a severely, but not yet dead indigenous woman. McLennan insists that Segundo also take his turn, but Segundo is conflicted and acts out of both shame and mercy.

Yet this script doesn’t see McLennan as just an exploiter of the indigenous people. He is also a victim, pretending to be a captain, and even pretending to be English when he was Scottish. If you don’t know the difference, you’ll have a hard time understanding the levels of racism within in the UK and other parts of Europe and how that is reflected in this Chilean Argentinian saga. McLennan is also exploited, particularly when he meets a man who sees him for what he is.

The film is divided into segments such as “The King of the White Gold,” “The Half-Blood,” “The Red Pig,” and “The Ends of the Earth” and ends  seven years after  this three-man expedition as some of the resulting actions that Menéndez set into motion, but McLennan carried out are being investigated. Segundo, now living in isolation with his wife on Chiloé, is sought out for questioning. There is a reference here to whales that is somewhat explained in the links below.

“The Settlers” revises how we think of the titular term and would be a great addition to the Native American Heritage Month list of movies. Haberle juxtaposes the beauty of the landscape and its original peoples with the horror and complexities of racism and genocide. The film is Chile’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. In English and Spanish.

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