Review of “The Dead Don’t Hurt” – Vicky Krieps is a woman of substance in Viggo Mortensen’s unconventional western | Western

Ön the surface, The dead don’t hurtthe second directorial venture from Viggo Mortensen (who also stars in the film, wrote the screenplay, produced it and composed the elegantly thoughtful score), it has the weathered, leathery look of a traditional Hollywood Western. The film tells the story of a rocky romance between a fiery, rebellious woman and a strong, taciturn man and was shot in striking widescreen format largely on location in Durango, Mexico, a region that has also served as the backdrop for numerous classics of the genre. John Sturges’ The glory sevenSam Peckinpah’s The wild bunch And Patrick Garrett and Billy the Kid and Sergio Leone’s The good, the bad And the ugly All took advantage of the big skies, the stunning vistas and the photogenically phallic geological formations. The land seems dramatic and gritty, with jutting rocky outcrops contrasting with the squat, wind-swept vegetation of the scrubland. But scratch beneath the dust and dirtbags of what passes for 1860s Nevada, and Mortensen’s film emerges as an unobtrusively offbeat take on this old-fashioned genre.

In a way, it is a film that reflects the personality and creative approach of its director. Mortensen, after all, has the classic bearing of a movie star and a bone structure that would have made him a star as Aragorn in The gentleman from the rings. But his career decisions later tended to be fascinating and unconventional – for every audience favorite like Green BookThere are a number of challenging roles in films by directors such as David Cronenberg. It is obvious that Mortensen’s take on a Western is a little off the beaten track.

The film centers on the love story of two independent people who have embraced the opportunities of the American West with enthusiasm and in their own way. Mortensen plays Danish immigrant Holger Olsen, a taciturn man who has clearly lived several full lives before settling in a modest cabin on the outskirts of Elk Flats, Nevada. On a visit to San Francisco (“to see the end of the world”), Olsen meets Vivienne (Vicky Krieps), a flower seller who has run out of patience with her dandy, boastful admirer. “Fool!” she exclaims, exasperated. Olsen watches her from the city’s harbor and is immediately fascinated.

And who can blame him? Krieps is great; her Vivienne has a rebellious spirit, a vicious sense of mischief and a love of beauty, qualities that set her apart from the hard-working, tooth-challenged frontiersmen in Olsen’s town. The daughter of French-speaking settlers, Vivienne grew up surrounded by trees and her mother’s romantic stories in the redwood forests near the Canadian border. She makes no secret of her disappointment with Olsen’s living situation. “So sad! No trees,” she sighs. “You live like a dog.” She stays, however, and softens the hard edges of Olsen’s primitive living situation with roses and bougainvilleas outside and fabrics and furniture inside. The idyll is short-lived, however. With the outbreak of the Civil War, former soldier Olsen feels compelled to fight again. And fate, in the form of the local rancher’s wayward son, has its own plans for Vivienne.

There is a kinship in the narrative and intimate character details between this film and revisionist westerns like Kelly Reichardt’s Meeks Cutoff. The languid pacing (the film is at times a little too leisurely and sluggish for its own good) and fractured, nonlinear structure suit Mortensen’s arthouse sensibility rather than the more traditional idea of ​​what a frontier adventure should look like. And by shaping this portrait of the untamed American West through the experiences of first- and second-generation immigrants, Mortensen plays with the quintessentially American identity of a certain kind of mythical Western (the kind that starred John Wayne and characterized its heroes with white hats and white skin).

Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind does wonders with the wild beauty of the landscape and the simmering tension of the local pub. And the sound design is rich and bustling—the silence that drew Olsen to his secluded corner of the world is never truly still: There’s a constant chorus of insects and birds, all accompanied by the vagaries of the weather. But despite all that, the film is only truly alive when Vivienne is onscreen. And that’s a potential problem. It’s not a spoiler, since the film begins on her deathbed, but much of the action concerns Olsen’s muted struggle to reconcile his grief over the loss of his love with his desire for revenge on the man who wronged her.

The film’s structure is a partial solution – Olsen’s post-death journey is intercut with Vivienne’s story, her mind and will pitted against the hostile machismo of the frontier. But it’s telling that we only notice the film’s deliberate pacing and dips in energy in the scenes where Krieps’ electrifying and magnetic presence is absent.