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Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka is now showing on Mubi in many countries.Eureka.A three-part film spanning starkly different locales, eras, and genres, Eureka (2023) stands as Lisandro Alonso’s most ambitious feature to date. It is also quite possibly the director’s most dreamlike—nothing short of remarkable considering its predecessor Jauja (2014). In that spellbinding period piece, a Danish colonial officer (Viggo Mortensen) travels across nineteenth-century Patagonia in search of his missing daughter. Late into the quest, a strange encounter with a wizened Danish-speaking woman suggests the soldier had traveled through time as well as space; a present-day coda makes the film’s timeline and logic even more disorienting.Eureka features a handful of similar twists. Written by Alonso together with poet Fabián Casas and Martín Caamaño, it begins as a black-and-white western starring Chiara Mastroianni as an infallible gunslinger and Viggo Mortensen as a father searching for his abducted daughter (again). But that preamble,...

Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka is a multi-faceted journey through time and space. Released in 2023, the film brings viewers across cultures and eras with its three disconnected yet cohesive episodes. Argentinian director Alonso weaves genres like Western, crime drama, and magical realism into a thought-provoking reflection on indigenous identity.

The movie follows an unconventional structure, divided into separate storylines spanning different locations and decades. First is a black-and-white section set in the Wild West, featuring Viggo Mortensen’s search for his daughter. Next, we see modern-day Lakota country through a police officer dealing with social issues. The final rainforest tale adds mystical elements.

Though disjointed, recurring themes and characters create links between the 150-minute segments. And Alonso’s experimental style challenges typical conventions. Long takes and ambiguous transitions blur reality with imagination. Audiences are invited to immerse in each world and make their own connections.

Underneath runs a deeper exploration of colonialism’s impacts.

Argentinian auteur Lisandro Alonso explores the harsh lives and dismal treatment of indigenous people across three timelines and settings in Eureka, a thought-provoking, minimalist triptych fable that defies convention at every turn. Each story has common themes of violence, loss, sadness, and the drunken morass of desperation with no possibility of escape. The characters search for relief from ugly surroundings that sap their spirits. They are caught in an unforgiving cycle of poverty and addiction that fuels a sense of futility. Eureka's contemplative approach and deep character focus is remarkable, but it's sluggish pacing and long cinematic beats may be off-putting to audiences used to quick edits and easy resolutions.

Viggo Mortensen stars in the first narrative as Murphy, a gunslinger on a murderous mission in 1870 Mexico. He's dropped off near a lawless town rife with debauchery and criminality. Gunshots are heard throughout as half-naked prostitutes cavort with seedy...

Lisandro Alonso’s first film in almost 10 years is also his second film starring Viggo Mortensen. “Eureka,” a time-spanning meditation on Indigenous communities, reunites the Argentine filmmaker with the star of his 2014 expressionist myth “Jauja.” And like that elliptical anti-Western about a Danish father and daughter on a colonial journey in Argentina, “Eureka” is another movie best pitched for the patient or for those attuned to, in the words of Variety’s Guy Lodge, “ambient pleasures.” IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for “Eureka” below ahead of its release from Film Movement in theaters this September. Watch below.

Here’s the official synopsis, courtesy of Film Movement: “Traversing time, space and genre, Argentinian filmmaker Lisandro Alonso (‘Jauja’) presents an elliptical meditation on the experiences of Indigenous communities across the Americas. Opening in a dusty town of the Old West, reality soon transitions to contemporary South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation...

One of the most-anticipated films to premiere at Cannes Film Festival this past year was Lisandro Alonso’s long-awaited Jauja follow-up Eureka. An epic spanning three different stories across space and time, with a cast including Viggo Mortensen and Chiara Mastroianni, we featured it prominently on our list of the best undistributed films of 2023 feature last month. Now, we’re pleased to exclusively announce that the Argentine director’s most ambitious film yet has found a home.

New York-based distributor Film Movement has acquired the film for North American distribution, with a theatrical premiere planned for Q3 of 2024, followed by release on all leading digital platforms and the home entertainment marketplace. The announcement was made by Michael Rosenberg, President, Film Movement, who recently picked up Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, and Romain Rancurel, Head of International Sales for Le Pacte.

“Since his earliest films, Lisandro has pushed the envelope with his unique viewpoint,...