Why Viggo Mortensen's back in the saddle

Viggo Mortensen features in Jauja (top) and Far From Men.

Viggo Mortensen talks to Helen Barlow about learning the lingo for his latest wide-ranging adventures

You wait for another Viggo Mortensen arthouse Western to come along and what do you know? Two show up at once.

The festival has a pair of such films featuring the actor formerly known as Aragorn, but while they may play like Westerns they are not cowboy movies.

Jauja, an Argentine-Danish-French production by Argentine director Lisandro Alonso, was a prizewinner in Cannes last year; while David Oelhoffen's French film and Venice prizewinner, Far From Men, is a version of Albert Camus' short story The Guest.

The latter film is set during the 1954 Algerian War and follows Daru, a reclusive French teacher, and Mohamed (Reda Kateb), a dissident Arabic villager accused of murder as they forge a special bond. In the midst of an icy winter they are forced to flee across the Atlas Mountains with horsemen on their trails.

"It's a very challenging story and I like a challenge," notes Mortensen, "Since his wife's death, Daru's living in the past, he's running away from life and Mohamed helps him realise that he doesn't want to do that anymore.

"I like this historical period in North Africa and this particular situation," he continues. "I also thought of other colonial situations, the conflict between other supposed civilising societies, whether it be in North America or in South America where I was raised, in Argentina. The consequences of that clash are felt for generations and generations. It takes a long time to get past the damage on both sides."

Perfecting his French for his first French-speaking role, and learning Arabic, proved much harder for the Spanish-resident multilingual actor.

"I speak far better French in the film than I normally do," he concedes. "I also had to change the accent I learned when I was young, which is more of a Quebec sound. I had to learn Arabic from scratch and it helped that I knew Spanish, as there are certain sounds that are not so different. I went to Algeria before we started shooting and spent some time there."

Jauja follows a father and daughter who venture from Denmark to Patagonia, where the girl elopes with an Argentinian only for Dad to track them through the wilderness.

Mortensen is back on horseback, roaming Argentina's rural north, where he holidayed as a child. "I copied my father, who speaks Spanish with a thick Danish accent, for the character. It was helpful that I had such strong connections with the culture, the language and the landscape."

Who: Viggo Mortensen
What: New Zealand International Film Festival screenings of Jauja (July 25 and July 30); Far From Men (July 26 and 29)

- TimeOut