Western isn’t my go-to genre, though there are some terrific Westerns that I’ve come to love: Big Country, 3:10 To Yuma (2007 version), Hell or High Water, True Grit, and The Rider, to name a few. This one intrigued me right away because it’s written and directed by the multi-talented Viggo Mortensen who also stars in and wrote the score.

Set on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a largely female-led story, still a rarity in this genre. Luxembourg-born Vicky Krieps portrays a fiercely independent French-Canadian woman Viviene Le Coudy. In San Francisco, after breaking off his liaison with a wealthy but controlling man (Colin Morgan), Viviene encounters a Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Mortensen) and the two quickly embark on a love affair.

The two then travel to a quiet town in Nevada to start a life together, but their time together is short-lived when Holger enlists for the Union Army as the Civil War breaks out. Viviene is left to fend of for herself in a perilous place run by unscrupulous men. There’s the crooked mayor (the ever so prolific Danny Huston), powerful shady rancher Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt), and his demented, violent son Weston (Solly McLeod). Weston immediately sets his sights on Viviene when she takes a job at the saloon bar and he isn’t the kind of man who takes no for an answer, which doesn’t bode well for Viviene. We’ve seen what a despicable psychopath Weston is from a shoot-out scene early in the film, but the people who enable him are just as guilty.

Mortensen incorporates flashbacks and flash-forwards, which can be a bit discombobulating at first. The decision to reveal Viviene’s fate at the start of the film is a curious one, but it works well without shortchanging the character’s trajectory. The interwoven narrative also includes brief scenes of Viviene’s childhood with her mother, and her dream sequences of a Medieval knight (LOTR’s Aragorn’s sword Andúril even makes a cameo).

While it can be a bit tough to follow at times, the film remains engaging throughout thanks to the stellar performances of the central characters, especially Krieps, with her otherworldly beauty and magnetic screen presence. No stranger to playing strong women, Krieps plays Viviene as formidable with real grit and strength. Not an un-relatable superheroine, but a real woman with a hearty sense of endurance and defiant spirit.

There’s a poignant moment when Holger returns and she asks him about the war, he later asks her ‘how was your war?’ It’s a seemingly simple scene that packs a punch because the battle pioneering women had to stand up and fight for in that time is no less arduous.

Mortensen’s Holger is molded from the genre’s ‘strong, silent type’ who keenly observes his surroundings and patiently waits for an opportunity for vengeance. Despite his Danish heritage, this is perhaps the first time I’ve seen Mortensen portray a Dane, a Danish cowboy no less. It’s particularly notable that as the composer, Mortensen relies on ambient noise in place of music, which really enhances the sensory experience. The score itself is lovely, not overbearing. Filmed in Mexico and British Columbia, the visuals are grand and awe-inspiring. DP Marcel Zyskind captured some of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen this year.

It’s no surprise that a soulful artist like Mortensen would make a poetic and lyrical Western. I appreciate the little nuances he incorporates into this slow-burn drama, such as the bird-shooting scene with Holger and Viviene’s son Vincent (Atlas Green) that explains the significance of the film’s title. Those expecting an exciting horse chase and shootout will get that in the final act, but for the most part, this is more of a quiet reflective drama with a slow, deliberate pace that’s far from boring.

This is Mortensen’s second feature after Falling in 2020, which I haven’t seen yet. I read that he didn’t originally set out to make a Western but his inspiration for the story was his late mother, Grace, a woman of her time very much like Viviene. As more Western films subvert toxic masculinity, it’s nice to see a feminist take on the genre that eschews familiar tropes. Consider this one added to my list of favorite Westerns.

Have you seen The Dead Don’t Hurt? I’d love to hear what you think.

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