The excellent Spaniard Rodrigo Sorogoyen himself raised the bar high with his previous achievements. With exceptional films such as “El reino” or “Que Dios nos perdone” or the “Antidisturbios” series, this excellent filmmaker did not disappoint with this exciting and intense drama, which was nominated for the Spanish Goya Film Award in all categories. “As bestas” or “The Beasts” is again a film in which we have a strong conflict on several levels, and partly Sorogoyen entered the territory that Sam Peckinpah started with “Straw Dogs”. Olga (Marina Fois) and Antoine (Denis Menochet) are a middle-aged French couple who decided to settle in a village in the mountains of Galicia, Spain.
To hint that they both once had serious careers, that they are city people whose already grown daughter Marie (Marie Colomb) stayed to live in France, and they decided to seek peace in nature in their late forties. They now grow vegetables, restore those traditional Galician stone houses, try to fit into the new environment, but their happiness is marred by a conflict with their first neighbors, the brothers Xana (Luis Zahera) and Lorenzo (Diego Anido), who provoke Antoine from the beginning. Soon we find out what is the cause of that conflict. Antoine and Olga refused to sell their land to Norwegian investors who plan to install windmills there, and Xan and Lorenzo saw in it an opportunity for a new beginning and an escape from poverty and a difficult life.
And the conflict between Antoine and the brothers will soon completely escalate because this craggy Frenchman will not just let himself be intimidated by guys who are clearly not good to mess with. Antoine does not want to deviate from his views, ideals and plans, and this conflict cannot end well. And once again, Sorogoyen and his constant screenwriting collaborator Isabel Pena made a shocking, brutal, but also high-quality and extremely smart film that works brilliantly on many levels. On the first level, we have this conflict between the natives and the newcomers, which they took at face value, but there is also a conflict between tradition and modernity. And that is very interesting because while these modern, urban people from France are trying to preserve the traditional way of life in that Galician wasteland, the depressed and primitive natives are ready to do anything to get hold of the money that will save them from that traditional, miserable and poor life.
It is interesting that in “Alcarras”, another Spanish film shot in the same year, the enemies of the traditional way of life are solar panels, and here the cause of the conflict is the windmill. Another form of that modern, green technology that masquerades as ecology, but is actually a new lever for capitalism’s brutal attack on nature and tradition. And while primitive types like the brothers cannot understand it, Antoine is clear about how the world works and that these stories about all these blessings and miracles are the most ordinary fairy tales. However, while for him life in that untouched nature is a choice, even he cannot fully understand those who have spent their whole lives there and who are bitter, disappointed with such lives and believe that moving somewhere else will bring them happiness.
Conflict and confrontation in such situations when no one wants to step down is unfortunately inevitable, and “As bestas” once again confirmed that Sorogoyen is the master of those intense dramas that dance on the edge of thrillers. And not only that, he brilliantly captures the spirit of the times and those conflicts that appear all around us, shapes them into film stories and dramatizes them into exciting films. “As bestas” is also a visually impressive film. From the opening scene where we see those strong mountain men, many of whom practice a special technique of taming wild horses and are convinced that they can obviously apply the same force to humans. Until the moments when the loud Xan and the slower Lorenzo, who, to give you an idea, was hit on the head by a horse in his youth, tell stories to everyone in a rural tavern, and Antoine is practically the only one who doesn’t fall for these stories.
Although Antoine would undoubtedly like to fit in and would like to avoid conflict with the first neighbors, it is obvious that this is unavoidable. Although these people share the territory and the country they live on, they could not be more different because they are separated by absolutely everything. From habits and views on life, principles, language, and practically from the first moments when Antoine faces his brothers, it is clear that it cannot end peacefully. It is a film with exceptional dynamics and divided into two segments, the action of which takes place over a relatively long period of time. The French actors are also great as the couple who decided to seek happiness in the mountains, as well as the characterful Spanish actor Zahera, who also had minor roles in Sorogoyen’s previous films.