'Jauja' Trailer: Viggo Mortensen In A South American Western

Jauja looks like a western, but it really takes place in Patagonia in the late 1800s — and the film's aspect ratio and general sense of tone reinforce the idea of this being something from decades past. Viggo Mortensen stars as a military captain working with the Argentine army, and the film appears to put his facility with languages to great use. Lisandro Alonso directs, and this looks like a very beautiful and unusual film for an audience that wants to see something different. Check out the Jauja trailer below.

Even if this isn't set in the American west, there are some other western film concepts here: the remote location, with lines drawn between friendly and enemy territory. Then there's the fact that Mortensen's character's daughter disappears into the wilderness, leading him on a search to find her. Combine those elements with the apparent tone of the film and the gorgeous score — also by Mortensen! — this seems like a movie for those who really like Jarmusch's Dead Man.

Jauja opens on March 20 in New York and March 27 in Los Angeles, followed by a national release. Trailer via The Playlist.

An astonishingly beautiful and gripping Western starring Viggo Mortensen, JAUJA (pronounced how-ha) begins in a remote outpost in Patagonia during the late 1800s. Captain Gunnar Dinesen has come from abroad with his fifteen year-old daughter to take an engineering job with the Argentine army. Being the only female in the area, Ingeborg creates a stir among the men. She falls in love with a young soldier, and one night they run away together. When Dinesen realizes what has happened, he decides to venture into enemy territory, against his men's wishes, to find the young couple. Featuring a superb performance from Mortensen, JAUJA (the name suggests a fabled city of riches sought by European explorers) is the story of a man's desperate search for his daughter, a solitary quest that takes him to a place beyond time, where the past vanishes and the future has no meaning.