In his new film The Dead Don’t Hurt, director and actor Viggo Mortensen questions classic western plots by putting the woman at the center of the story. Mortensen makes this step clear in the first minute: he lets the main character (Vicky Krieps) die. She lies in bed terminally ill, her partner (Viggo Mortensen) guards her deathbed. The emotions are entirely on the woman’s side. The man becomes an accessory.
Viggo Mortensen stages a love drama in a tough Western setting
Ultimately, Mortensen embeds a classic love story in an environment dominated by corrupt men around 1860. The emancipated French-Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) and the Danish immigrant and hermit Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen) fall in love. They build a life for themselves in the small town of Elk Flats. There, the villain Weston Jeffries (Solly McLeod), based on the tyrannical side of Tom Dunson (John Wayne) from the classic Red River, causes fear and terror. He takes what he wants, he knows no rules. Vivienne will also experience this first hand.
Check out the trailer for The Dead Don’t Hurt:
The Dead Don’t Hurt – Trailer 2 (German) HD
Many scenes and places might seem familiar. The man dangling from the gallows is reminiscent of Budd Boetticher’s low-budget western The Man Who Knew (1959), the saloon is based on For a Few Dollars More (1965) with Clint Eastwood: Across from the bar, a man is playing the piano, a wooden staircase leads to a few seats. In between is plenty of room for shootings, but most of them don’t happen. Mortensen instead opts for meaningful images that demonstrate an “after”.
The film was not shot in Lone Pine, California, as is usual for many westerns, but mostly in the canyons of Durango (Mexico). Viggo Mortensen adorns images of the barren landscape with self-composed, calm film music made up of piano, cello and violin. Everything fits well with the often too leisurely narrative pace of The Dead Don’t Hurt.
A strong woman is at the center of the story
Mortensen’s western drama stands out clearly from a neo-western like Bone Tomahawk (2016), in which the female protagonist (Lili Simmons) mainly serves to advance the storylines of the male heroes. In contrast, The Dead Don’t Hurt does not focus on the fate of the man, but follows the woman.
Alamode / The Film Agents
Viggo Mortensen and Vicky Krieps in The Dead Don’t Hurt
While Holger Olsen goes off to fight in the civil war, Vivienne Le Coudy is left alone in the wilderness. We never find out what happens to Olson in the meantime. Vivienne, meanwhile, is portrayed as an educated, strong woman who speaks fluent English in addition to her mother tongue (French). She is able to hold her own in a harsh environment. A beautiful symbolic image: the little piece of land that Holger has planted for her is growing and flourishing.
Vivienne, impressively quietly played by Vicky Kriepsfinds fresh courage to deal with the difficult situation even when everything seems lost. The director tells of typical Western motifs such as good and evil, revenge and forgiveness based on the relationship between Weston Jeffries and Vicky Kriep’s role.
More on the topic:
Mortensen breaks the form of the Western – which is good for the genre
Not every element corresponds to a typical western. For example, in Vivienne’s memory a knight keeps appearing in the forest, who, as she gets older, becomes more and more recognizable to her eyes and seems to show her the way emotionally. The fact that the French-Canadian speaks several languages is also rather unusual. She is not portrayed as the heroine of the story.
The Heroine will not shoot with a revolver like the tough ranger Jane (Natalie Portman) in the neo-western Jane Got a Gun (2015). And don’t hire a bounty hunter like Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) in Antoine Fuqua’s remake of The Magnificent Seven (2016) or 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) in Joel & Ethan Coen’s True Grit (2010). Vivienne is not driven by a desire for revenge. She is a woman who defends her place in society against all odds. She finds strength in friendship and love.
Mortensen impressively shows that even the way to make a westernshould not be set in stone, but that one should question typical images of heroes. Because most of the time, the ones you don’t see (often) are the real heroes.
The Dead Don’t Hurt has been in German cinemas since August 8, 2024.