Far from Men – DVD review

Viggo Mortensen (The Two Faces of January) stars in a tale of morality and friendship set against an unforgiving mountainous landscape during the Algerian War.

The year is 1954 and the war is just starting. Remote village schoolteacher Daru (Mortensen), an ex-French Army soldier, who lost his wife a decade earlier, is caught in the crossfire. Born in Algeria but Spanish by lineage, he is a man out of time and place, perceived as alien by both locals and colonisers. Daru reluctantly agrees to escort a dissident, Mohamed (Reda Kateb from A Prophet and Zero Dark Thirty) to a regional police station to face trial for murdering his cousin. Over the course of the next few days a series of incidents and revelations underpin where Daru’s loyalties truly lie.

Loosely based upon a 13-page short story called “The Guest” written by Albert Camus in 1954, the film features an original soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. The screenplay and direction is from David Oelhoffen and the movie bears the hallmarks of a classic frontier western.

Oelhoffen acknowledges it as an unconventional western steeped in European history against the backdrop of the North African highlands. As he says: “True to the genre, there are colonisers and the colonised, a prisoner to be escorted and a plot that spirals into violence. “A collision between two systems of law is at the heart of the story and its character relationships.” “We bear witness to two cultures and two moralities forced into co-existence by history.”

The fierce, unrelenting, rugged desert landscape serves as an additional character in the story. It makes us appreciate just what a tough life it is for those that inhabit this part of the world. Far From Men maintains a fairly slow pace broken by occasional surges of action and emotion. It is a slow burn of a film that gradually works its way into our psyche. The characters are on a journey and the audience goes with them.

At first both Daru and Mohamed keep their cards close to their respective chests, but then we get to hear more about their lives and what they stand for. Not mighty soulful reveals mind you, just snippets, although enough to flesh out the narrative and maintain interest. Justice and morality get a working over, but fate also plays a part in the outcome.

Far From Men is a picture for selective tastes, a movie that sits comfortably in the art house category. Rated M, it scores a 6½ out of 10 and is available from 9 December 2015 on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming services.

Alex First