The Dead Don't Hurt

At the screening on Friday, Oct. 18, 6:15 p.m. in Sala Petrassi, a Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Viggo Mortensen.

On the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s, Vivienne falls in love with Danish immigrant Holger and agrees to move to Nevada with him. When the Civil War breaks out, however, Vivienne will be left to fend for herself and repel the threats arriving from a corrupt and violent community. At war’s end, nothing will ever be the same.

COMMENTARY
Viggo Mortensen’s second film as writer and is a sophisticated feminist western. With a plot that shifts between past and present against the backdrop of breathtaking scenery, and marvelous performances to boot, this western allows Mortensen to treat us to a perceptive character study of a strong and tenacious woman.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
These vast horizons – the legendary Durango in Mexico, and eastern and western Canada – along with the historical setting might make one expect a classic western, but this film defies categorization. The truth is, the story was inspired by a daydream I had about my mother. I have some of her illustrated books from the 1930s, about medieval knights and their exploits. She’d grown up near the maple trees of the American northeast, and I could imagine her roaming through those woods as a child and wanting to be in one of those stories. I wondered what might have happened to that imaginary little girl as a woman. So I thought, well, let’s have the story begin at the end of her life.