Viilbjork Mallin Agger and Viggo Mortensen in Jauja (Toronto International Film Festival)

A tormented wayfarer stares into a stream at his woozy reflection. Waist-deep in a windswept tide pool, a hard-faced ruffian jerks himself to a joyless climax. In another scene, a single disembodied hand steals into frame to filch the hat and gun lying next to a blood-drenched body. Astonishing shots wield primal power in Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja. Arresting as they are, they stir up more questions than answers in a surpassingly strange, haunting film.

One of its long opening scenes places the action on a South American seacoast. Wardrobe indicates the 1880s, but the setting feels eerily isolated and out of time. Diffident Danish captain Gunnar Dinesen (Viggo Mortensen) has arrived as surveyor for a Spanish military expedition, whose mission, it becomes clear, includes genocide. The film makes the point that no one flaunts cruelty more proudly than the “civilized.” Our tide pool onanist boasts of the local “coconut-heads” he plans to kill and enslave, and the ornate necklace he sports has likely been pillaged from one of them. Dinesen brings his adored teenage daughter, Ingeborg (Viilbjork Malling Agger), on the trip, although this wilderness enslaved by sadists may not be an ideal place to raise a young lady.

The captain tries to reconcile himself to dodgy company. Not so his daughter. In a cast heavy with period faces, Agger looks like a pillowy-lipped sexpot straight out of the 2015 H&M catalogue. Is this the director’s way of telling us that the girl is trouble? We are not surprised at all when she runs away with a soldier into the night. What is striking is the scene: a dark, dream-like tableau that recalls Mary and Joseph’s flight from Egypt. Dinesen’s stunned disbelief at her treachery also packs a punch with wordless devastation. The captain’s journey to find and bring back Ingeborg has begun.

And what a trip it is. A line has been crossed, and we now enter a different movie, sinewy and stripped of dialogue, as Dinesen pushes himself to the edge with each step into the interior. Framed by a vast, indifferent countryside, scenes veer into nihilistic cruelty, dizzying surprises, and surreal encounters with animals and unlikely interlocutors. Clues come and go, but people at the edge of the action remain maddeningly out of reach. Punishing terrain almost becomes a character pitted against the captain. As Mortensen climbs, crawls, falls, and burns with thirst, his performance seems to lead him to an inner landscape beyond suffering, a place as blasted and stark as the world outside.

The director possesses nothing if not singular vision. The film is unusually shot in 3:4 aspect ratio with curved edges like an old stereopticon. Music composed by Mortensen and avant-garde metal guitarist Buckethead is heard only in two brief scenes. A shame, as it is beautiful. Seasoned filmgoers may recall Wim Wenders’ Aguirre, the Wrath of God in the captain’s driven quest or think of Terrence Malick in scenes of nature’s beguiling menace. Drifting Danish dialogue may even bring Bergman to mind. But Alonso’s tale has a force and mystery all its own. Like the captain, we are taunted by a presence just out of sight.

Viewers with a yen for enigma and unpredictability will walk away delighted. Those who demand a solid plot are likely to find it perplexing, even irritating. Neither camp will be immune to the impact of some unforgettable scenes. I squirmed from impatience and confusion at times, but images have returned later to take my mind to strange places.