Based on a short story by Albert Camus, Far From Men (Loin des Hommes) sits comfortably alongside many of its peers in the realm of films about tiny men amidst epic landscapes. While this is reflective of its origins (and not inherently critical), it’s fair to say that this occasionally touching, well-performed piece offers little to truly distinguish it from its contemporaries.
Algeria, 1954. French-Algerian Daru (Viggo Mortensen) is living a simple, comfortable life teaching desert children to read when he is tasked by a neighbour with transporting Mohamed (Reda Kateb), a villager accused of murder, to a nearby city for trial. The two men form a bond as they journey on foot through a country immersed in civil war.
Though it’s shot with enough lens flare to make J.J. Abrams squint, the Algerian desert is a sparse and beautiful backdrop. As with all films of this kind, the landscape is a character all of its own, complementing the two male leads in their often terse silence. Mortensen, easily the more animated of the pair, is impressive in his capabilities with both French and Arabic dialects, while Kateb is agreeable as a young man trapped by cultural obligation.
The film does an admirable job of preserving the spirit of Camus’ work, embodied in the struggle of two simple men against senseless violence. And this is emphatically a story about men, with women only popping up briefly as desert prostitutes or long-lost wives. Just who, or what, is ‘far from men’ is a question left to the viewer.
Director David Oelhoffen focuses primarily on building the core relationship, but is perhaps over-reliant on expository dialogue to communicate the philosophical concepts underneath. Daru is a man whose moral core is rarely shaken – if anything, he’s a little too stable to allow for true drama to unfold.
Having said that, there are beautifully absurdist moments – like the men racing through a storm to find shelter in an abandoned house, only to find it roofless – that elevate the experience. A minimal but tantalising score is provided by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, who now share formidable credits as film composers.
It may not aspire to greatness, but Far From Men carries Camus’ ideology of the struggle against a meaningless existence ever on into the desert, and for that alone is worthy of praise.
3/5 stars
Far From Men opens in cinemas on Thursday July 30.
