Avis Metacritic

Its unflinching depiction of the brutal genocide of the Selk’nam people intermingles with pointed contempt for the egotistical yet pathetic colonists.

It’s one of the most chilling art-Westerns to come along in some time, as provocative for its ideas, dialogue, and characterizations, as for the beauty of its empty landscapes.

Gálvez’s work here is by turns blunt and subtle, and very assured.

The film is a blistering laceration of the contradictions and hypocrisies of European racism.

While its stylings are purposely retro, its aims are very much of the here and now. This is a film that digs deep into Chile’s colonial past — especially during a closing section that transforms the story into one of historical reckoning.

In its unflinching portrayal of historical massacres perpetrated against the Ona tribes of South America, it presents obfuscated truths about colonial atrocities, using its austere direction and sun-bleached color palette to firmly place us in the middle of man-made horrors.

While spare early passages are narratively opaque and formally ornate to a distancing fault, the riveting second half––including a chilling reckoning with others occupying the desolate land and a well-executed structural gamble––brings profound expansion to this chilling story of atrocity.

A brutal, chilling indictment of capitalist colonialism, The Settlers mixes shocking violence with acute apathy.

It’s an engrossing story, even at its most gruesome or theatrical. For my money, it’s more satisfying, cinematic, exotic and allegorical than the thematically and historically similar “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

The Settlers shows promise: it’s the work of a daring director intent on developing a distinctive and original voice.