New film premier “The Dead Don’t Hurt”

DeCine21

By Juan Luis Sánchez

April 30, 2024

The wandering Dane

After the war against Austria and Prussia the Danish Holger Olsen emigrated to the Union, in the New World, where he began working as a carpenter. In San Francisco, he falls in love with Vivenne Le Coudy, a Franco-Canadian florist with a huge temperament who will move with him to a hut outside a border town. When the Civil War breaks out, Olsen feels he should enlist with the Northern Army, so he leaves Vivienne, who finds work as a waitress in a bar, alone for a time. Unfortunately, it catches the attention of Weston, a violent young man with whom no one messes up for being Jeffries's son, corrupt local chieftain.

Second work as a filmmaker of Viggo Mortensen, who, like the first, Fallen, also stars and writes alone, and has also composed the soundtrack. The star surpasses himself with a western to which you can apply that label so helped by classic spells, because John Ford would have been interested in a similar libretto, which even has a villain with a black hat, in the purest style of the tradition of the genre. It has many elements in common with Appaloosa, also actor converted into director Ed Harris, where Morgensen only participated as an interpreter, as he shares the dirty realism of historical reconstruction, also describes a West full of immigrants, and places special emphasis on showing the lives of women in that historical period.

How well Mortensen is the metaphorical sequences that show his heroine, talking about Santa Juana de Arco, with whom he has similarities, or as a child waiting for a knight-errant. Or a symbolic moment when Olsen (Mortensen himself), in an exhibition of paintings in which he seems not to fit, however straightens a twisted picture, because he is bothered by everything that is not placed as he should be... As a filmmaker bets on a simple and traditional style, which bets on letting the actors look, instead of showing complex camera movements, the same strategy that provides so good results to Clint Eastwood. He has also chosen a flash-backs-based structure, which at first puzzles a little, but right away all the elements are well-splenty.

The romantic story also speaks of themes such as the sense of duty and invites you to think about the path of revenge, stripped of meaning. Although Viggo Mortensen embroiders his character, the typical laconic cowboy, takes the most advantage of his Vicky Krieps, who composes a complex Vivienne, self-sufficient but also with his weak points. It's not bad the secondary ones who paint the typical microcosm of these stories, as there's the local villain, Weston Jeffries (Solly McLeod); his powerful father, Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt); corrupt mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston); and the gentle tavern manager (W. Earl Brown)

Hasta el fin del mundo – Spanish title

The Dead Don’t Hurt – International title

 

A 2022 Mexican, British, Canada, Danish film production [Talipot Studio (Mexico City), Polyphony Digital (Tokyo), Talipot Studios (Mexico City), Amanda Verhagen Films (Vancouver) and Steve Solomos Films (Toronto,) Recorded Picture (London), Perceval Pictures (Copenhagen)]

Producers: Paula Astorga, Daniel Bekerman, George Bennett, Ivan Kelava, Andrew Kotliar, Jesper Morthorst, Roberto Paxson, Gabriel Terrazas, Regina Solórzano, Jeremy Thomas, Viggo Mortensen (Viggo Mortensen Jr.)

Director: Viggo Mortensen (Viggo Mortensen Jr.)

Story: Viggo Mortensen (Viggo Mortensen Jr.)

Screenplay: Viggo Mortensen

Cinematography: Marcel Zyskind [color]

Music: Viggo Mortensen (Viggo Mortensen Jr.)

Running time: 129 minutes

 

Story: Set in the 1860s, an independent French- Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen. After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, Vivienne agrees to travel with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, where they start a life together. The Civil War separates them, leaving Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries and his violent, wayward son Weston Jeffries, aided and abetted by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller. Olsen’s eventual return challenges their relationship as they have to confront and make peace with the person each has become.

 

Cast:

Holger Olsen – Viggo Mortensen (Viggo Mortensen Jr.)

Alfred Jeffries - Garret Dillahunt

Vivienne Le Coudy – Vicky Krieps

Weston Jeffries - Solly McLeod

Rudolph Schiller – Danny Huston

Alan Kendall – W. Earl Brown

Bill Crossley – Shane Graham

Claudio Garcia – Rafel Plana

Ed Wilkins – Alex Breaux

Fergus McGillicuddy – Jason Clarke

Railroad Magnate – Arturo Coronado

Reverend Simpson – John Getz

Johnny Chapman – Henry Mortensen

Fishmonger Stevens – Marc Dennis

Little Vincent – Atlas Green

Sarah – Angela Lentz

Martha Gilkyson – Nadia Litz

Judge Blagden – Ray McKinnon

Jury foreman – Rodrigo Santacruz

Little Vivienne Le Coudy – Eliana Michaud

Sergeant Webb – Michael Weaver

With: Colin Morgan

Stunt coordinator: Omar Ayala, Julio Carreri, Jaymie Payton, Julio Carreri

Stunts: Noe luna Bedolla, Oscar Jalife, Cristo Ruiz, Akeela Zea