Love blossoms amid violence in Viggo Mortensen’s western.
French-Canadian flower seller Vivienne Le Coudy and Danish carpenter Holger Olsen meet in San Francisco. Vivienne is irreverent, fiercely independent, and refuses to wed, but agrees to travel with Holger to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, Nevada. There, they begin a life together — Vivienne grows roses and waits tables at a tavern and Holger builds barns, until the couple are separated by Holger’s decision to fight for the Union in the burgeoning Civil War.
The dead don’t hurt, Viggo Mortensen’s second outing as writer and director is an elegantly realised feminist western starring Mortensen himself and Vicky Krieps as immigrants attempting to forge a life in a corrupt California town.
VIGGO MORTENSEN (Writer, director, composer, producer) received critical acclaim for his directorial debut, Falling, which he also wrote and produced. Additionally, he was a producer on Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja, David Oelhoffen’s Loin des hommes, Ana Piterbarg’s Todos tenemos un plan, and Henry Mortensen’s Ugly Pop.
He made his debut in the film Witness (1985), in which he played a small role. He subsequently appeared in The Indian Runner (1991), Carlito’s way (1993), Portrait of a women (1996), A Perfect murder (1998) and A walk on the moon (1999). But it was Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) that revealed him to the world through his portrayal of the character of Aragorn. His four collaborations with David Cronenberg – A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), A Dangerous Method (2011), Crimes of the future (2022) – as well as his roles in The Road (2009), Far from men (2015) and Captain Fantastic (2016), earned him widespread critical acclaim. The Dead Don’t Hurt is his second feature film as a director.
