A complex and engaging historical yarn set in Patagonia and beautifully shot on location there and in Galicia in northern Spain, the epic, sweeping Tierra Del Fuego may be Chilean Miguel Littin's most ambitious directorial project to date. Even before it was complete, word of mouth in Chile suggested it was a good bet to win this year's best foreign-language Oscar. Tierra is co-scripted by Littin and Luis Sepulveda, the acclaimed author of 1992's The Old Man Who Read Love Stories. Tonino Guerra, who has worked with Fellini and Antonioni, also participated in the script.

Set in 1860, the film tells the story of entrepreneur Julius Popper
(Jorge Perugorria), a Romanian engineer who has taken possession of the Tierra del Fuego coastline with the aim of exploiting it for gold. He is joined by a colourful cast of hangers-on, ranging from beautiful madame Armenia (the timeless Ornella Muti) to eccentric Italian adventurer Spiro (Claudio Santamaria) and lonely Galician wanderer Silveira (Spanish Almodóvar veteran Nancho Novo).

Though the story behind it is reworked radically, the film is based on ­ and, according to Littin, is an homage to ­ the work of Chilean writer Francisco Coloane, a scribe from early in the last century who wrote in the adventuring Conrad/Melville tradition. The film opens up questions of perennial human interest such as how much suffering we will endure in the name of ambition. "The crazy thing about the human race," says Littin, "is that it hasn't understood anything. We still use power and violence to impose ourselves on others."

Jonathan Holland