‘The Colonists’ contrasts the brutality of indigenous genocide with the beauty of the silent landscapes of Tierra del Fuego

“José Menéndez: the king of Patagonia” was the title given to a text from the Museo Regional de Magallanes, in Punta Arenas, which lists the achievements of the killer of countless indigenous people of the ethnic group Selk’nam — known as onas. The information is not hidden by the museum, but it was considered less relevant than the number of hectares acquired by the Spaniard, for example. With saturated colors and amid the cold of the extremes of Chile and Argentina, The Colonists Tell us exactly how this happened.

In the debut film of Felipe Gálvezdepicted in the early 20th century, former Scottish soldier Alexander McLennan (Mark Stanley) and Texan killer Bill (Benjamin Westfall) come together under the command of Menéndez (Alfredo Castro) to exterminate any indigenous people present along a path that runs through both countries. The mestizo Segundo (Camilo Arancibia) is also invited to accompany the journey on horseback, thanks to his good aim. When he is positioned on the side of the genocidaires, however, he hesitates to pull the trigger and kill people who are more like him than his white companions.

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The feature film did not need to be three hours long, like the one with a similar theme Flower Moon Assassinsto offer, through fiction, a fragment of the history that was repeated throughout South America. Facing the silent landscapes of Tierra del Fuego, men compete for power and spaces on which they will never walk again.

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Within the group in charge of eliminating the indigenous people, there is a hierarchy: Second is treated as an object, Bill must answer to the Scotsman, while the ex-soldier, until a certain moment self-styled lieutenant, is unmasked when he encounters Colonel Martin (Sam Spruell), who held a senior position in the British army.

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The script for Gálvez It is Antonia Girard did not dispense with brutality and included rapes and bloody deaths in the film. Menéndez’s henchmen collect indigenous ears to manage the number of deaths and prove the delivery of the service they were tasked with. Still, the director of photography’s work Simone D’Arcangelo it softens the amazement of violence and allows discomfort to also be contemplated.

José Menéndez and Alexander McLennan, figures who really existed, emerged unscathed from the genocide. Second, in turn, and the indigenous Kiepja (Mishell Guaña) are isolated on the edge of the continent and need to be readapted to be part of the country itself. “Do you want to belong to this nation or not?” asks a government official when he visits them and photographs them in typically European clothes.

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