Lisandro Alonso's haunting movie Jauja isn't going to win over any new fans to the genre of "slow cinema", but for those with patience its sequence of tableau images will provide ample food for thought, as Viggo Mortensen's Captain Gunnar Dinesen traverses enemy territory in Patagonia, in search of his missing daughter. Set during the genocidal "Conquest of the Desert", the pacing is slow and deliberate, with much of the action - or lack of - taking place in stunningly composed shots which recall photography of old. At time this feels like something Alejandro Jodorowsky might make, albeit more in the vein of an existential rather than spiritual quest. Another film all but guaranteed to appear on a number of "Best Of The Year" movie lists, it's a challenging watch which demands the firm attention of the audience, but with its shifting time scales and suggestion that the present is inextricably linked to the past make it linger in the mind after the credits roll.
