With ravishing landscapes, violent political allegory and a glacial narrative that takes an abrupt left turn in the third act: Lisandro Alonso’s “Jauja” resolutely checks every 2015 art-film box.

The story concerns Gunnar Dinesen (Viggo Mortensen), a Danish engineer working in 19th-century Patagonia. When his teenage daughter (the gorgeous but affectless Viilbjørk Malling Agger) runs away with a soldier, he sets off in pursuit.

The film wraps its musings about colonial crimes in a great deal of wilderness symbolism. The plot is occasionally baffling, but the thematic point is not. Then again, “Jauja” is also thrillingly beautiful, and graced with Mortensen, who seizes the imagination even when he’s sniffing horse manure. It’s a movie designed for maximum intellectual appeal, even if the emotional impact is slight.