Review: The Dead Don't Hurt (2023)
Viggo Mortensen wrote and directed this western about an independent woman whose inspiration is Joan of Arc
The Dead Don’t Hurt (2023)
Written, directed, and composed by Viggo Mortensen
In this beautiful, thoughtful western set in the 1860s, a Danish immigrant named Olsen (Viggo Mortensen) meets a French-Canadian woman, Vivienne, in San Francisco and takes her to his casita in northern Nevada. Played by Vicky Krieps, Vivienne has an independent streak a mile wide; her pioneer mother taught her to read and write using a children’s book about Joan of Arc, whom Vivienne takes as her inspiration and patron. While putting a lived-in touch on Olsen’s isolated spread, she also wants to make money on her own. This puts her in the sights of the local bigshot’s failson, Weston Jeffries (Solly McLeod), whose abuse of her eventually leads to a showdown between the men.
In one sense, the story is quite traditional, but this film, written and directed by Mortensen, is unique and particular in all the ways that really matter. Vivienne is a stronger character than Olsen (and Krieps is billed above Mortensen), and the film is justified in making her its center — despite her dying in the first scene. We see her as a child in the eastern Canadian forests, being read to from the Joan book; decades later in the remote Nevada cabin, she reads the same book to her own son. She brightens the cabin and plants trees and flowers around it less to add “a woman’s touch” or a “civilizing” influence and more because her self-respect demands it; Olsen might be all right with “living like a dog,” as she puts it — “Well, a happy dog,” he admits, not much bothered — but she isn’t. Indeed, she’s quite self-sufficient, and doesn’t let anyone underestimate her. When Weston, trying to act nice, brings her two bundles of manure for her garden, he offers to send a workman to spread it. “I can do it myself,” she replies, and not even he doubts her.
While allowing Vivienne to address such character-clarifying moments in dialogue, such as the scene where she answers Olsen’s marriage proposal with a fervently spoken vow never to be anyone’s wife, the film makes even more from near-wordless moments. In the scene where Olsen returns from the war after five or so years, Mortensen allows himself and Krieps to perform the reunion mostly through their faces: Olsen’s joy at returning to find his lover mixed with the confusion and pain he feels at the presence of her son, and Vivienne’s loneliness and almost suspicion of him that will not be pierced by his mere appearance. She needs to know how he will adjust himself to the unexpected child. Asked “Whose son is it?” she answers with a single word: “Mine.” It’s not what Olsen was asking, but he lets it drop, understanding that she has earned the appropriation of what had been his cabin. His gentleness with her and respect for her never falters.
Outside this relationship, the film portrays a wilderness that is neither so beautiful that it feels entirely safe for people, nor so hostile that a sensitive and skilled person can’t live in it. The vistas — including waterfalls, dry gullies so sterile they might be on the moon, and gorgeous canyons, one of which either is, or resembles, Yosemite — are beautifully framed. The setting is northern Nevada and the Sierras, but according to the credits, these scenes, as well as all of the interiors, I think, were shot in the state of Durango, in Mexico. (Scenes of Vivienne’s childhood were shot in Ontario, and the final segment in which Olsen and his son travel to the Pacific coast was filmed in British Columbia.) Mortensen shows talent as a director during action scenes as well, where the intercutting of various angles is never confusing.
Up to now I’ve described the story chronologically, but in fact the film jumps back and forth in time between the events preceding Vivienne’s death and those which follow it. This was confusing for the first hour, but by the halfway point the landmarks are established and the viewer knows where she is; but I don’t see any particular reason for the jumping around. The usual reason for a non-chronological narrative to exist is to allow the movie to present crucial information in a more effective way whereas if a strictly chronological timeline were followed, that revelation would happen too soon or too late in the film. What is that crucial point in “The Dead Don’t Hurt”? The emotional center of the story is Olsen’s return to the cabin after the war, and the few scenes that transpire between then and Vivienne’s death. Why this wouldn’t work just as well in a conventionally-presented timeline, I don’t know.
Vicky Krieps is a wonderful presence in this movie, hitting every note. Never showy or ungrounded, she is absolutely credible and trustworthy throughout, and should be an acknowledged star by now. I’m going to take a look at her other work during the next several days.