JAUJA
"A delicate and enigmatic reflection on the legacy of European imperialism ... its reception in Cannes was ecstatic." – Hollywood Reporter
In Incan mythology, Jauja was a land of impossible plenty, where all man's material wants could be satisfied. For 19th-century explorer Captain Dinesen (Viggo Mortensen, in his first Danish-speaking role), the lure is too hard to resist, yet when his daughter runs off with a young soldier, Dinesen must confront the brutal wilderness and the dangerous wild man Zuluaga in order to find her.
Argentinean director Lisandro Alonso (Fantasma, MIFF 2006) returns with another accomplished, mind-bending filmic reverie in Jauja, winner of the Un Certain Regard FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes. A meditative, hallucinogenic and thought-provoking enigma of a film, it revels in the sonic and cinematographic potential of cinema, both mystifying and enticing even as it burrows deep into the unsettling marrow of human love and cruelty.