This intriguingly languorous Western by the Argentine director Lisandro Alonso explores the existential plight of Indigenous Americans in three separate timelines.
In the beginning of “Eureka,” we’re plunged into the Wild West — and it’s pretty much how the movies have always imagined it. A rogue gunman (Viggo Mortensen) hitches a wagon ride into town; unfriendly locals squint at him in a rowdy pub; guns are drawn and brains are blown out.
There’s something overly affected — comically macho — about this standard revenge plot. That’s by design. We zoom out from the black-and-white drama, which is playing on a TV set, and enter the modern world: colorful, yes, but with none of the exaggerated emotions and chest-thumping justice-seekers of the earlier sequence.
“Eureka,” an intriguingly languorous, visually audacious drama from the Argentine director Lisandro Alonso, is about the existential plight of modern-day Indigenous Americans — people too often trapped in the fictions created by others.
In the present, we follow the wonderfully deadpan Alaina (Alaina Clifford), a cop in South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, where the problems far outnumber the staff on the sheriff’s payroll. That’s not to say that Alaina fends off gunslingers — there are missing children, people with intense substance abuse problems; grim realities that feel distressingly typical.
In another plotline, Sadie (Sadie LaPointe), a young woman with a deceptively chipper manner, shoots hoops by herself; visits her cousin in jail; chats with an actress (Chiara Mastroianni) passing through the reservation. LaPointe’s is a beautiful performance: a slight crack in her voice, the flicker of her eyes, conveys the strength it takes to persist — to keep a straight face — within such bleak circumstances.
Ultimately, the film feels a bit misshapen. A third act set in the jungles of Brazil in the 1970s depicts tribe members discussing their livelihoods as gold prospectors encroach on their lands. Here, extra-long shots of wild splendor and oblique talk of dreams makes the film go from patient to listless. At this stage, it’s a challenging sit, but perhaps that’s the point considering where we started.
Eureka
Not rated. Running time: 2 hours 27 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
