Although it’s set in the steamy, riverine jungle of northern Argentina, this Spanish-language drama is basically a western, except instead of cowboys v Native Americans, it’s murderous agribusiness representatives v smallholders.
Alice Braga plays a farmer’s daughter, abducted by evil Claudio Tolcachir, until Gael García Bernal, a mystery man with no name or shirt, comes to save her and help fight off the bad guys. No one actually says he’s of indigenous stock, but clearly he has a special, semi-mystical bond with the land and earned all the right badges in his jungle boy scout troop for trap building with shoots and vines and jaguar whispering.
It’s all very environmentally minded and terribly worthy, but a bit of a slow-moving slog, and utterly devoid of any moistening drop of humour. Nevertheless, the landscape itself, the comely stars and the aforementioned jaguar are pleasant to look at through director of photography Julian Apezteguia’s wide-angle lens.
