The Beasts (2022) Movie | Denis Ménochet | Marina Foïs | Luis Zahera | Review And Facts

[Music] e e e hey there movie lovers welcome to MP movie facts your hub for all things Cinema get ready to dive deep into the world of film with us from the latest Blockbusters to Hidden gems we're here to dissect discuss and debate it all join us every day as we break down The Good The Bad and The downright epic in our honest and insightful movie reviews whether you're a DieHard film fanatic or just looking for your next flick to watch we've got you covered so grab your popcorn hit that subscribe button and let's embark on this cinematic journey together the beasts is a 2020 2 Thriller film directed and produced by Rodrigo soran who wrote the screenplay with Isabelle Pina a co-production between Spain and France it features Spanish French and Galician dialogue it stars Denny mayet Marina Fo lis zahur Diego anido and Marie colum the film is Loosely inspired by real events involving a Dutch couple in sanela a semi-abandoned hamlet of the Spanish Municipality of petan from 2010 to 2014 it follows a married French couple mayet and Foy settled in the Galan Countryside exploring issues of xenophobia and escalating hostility between neighbors boyed by a conflict viav a wind farm project arriving to a point of no return the film made its World premiere at the 2022 K's Film Festival on the 26th of May 2022 with a festival run that also included screenings in San Sebastian Tokyo and Chicago it was released theatrically in France on the 20th of July 2022 and in Spain on the 11th of November 2022 the beasts earned a leading 17 nominations including five for acting at the 37th Goya Awards and one nine including best film Best Director best original screenplay best actor for May noit and best supporting actor for Zahara it also won the Cesar Award for best for film the film was produced by Arcadia Motion Pictures cabalo films Kronos entertainment and laati with the participation of rtve movar Plus Canal plus and sin plus support from urri images and funding from IA the screenplay was penned by soran's longtime collaborator Isabelle Pena and Sor goyan himself the production crew also features other soran's recurring collaborators such as Oliver arson as compos Alex depablo as director of cinematography and Alberto Del Campo as film editor soran reported that he would shoot the film as a western filming began on the 16th of September 2021 and wrapped on the 13th of December 2021 shooting locations included El beo and Inland Galicia the beasts debuted in the can's Premiere section at the 75th can's Film Festival on the 26th of May 2022 distributed by leaki 19 the film opened in French theaters on the 20th of July 2022 it also screened at the 7th San Sebastion International Film Festival in September 2022 as part of the pearls film slate it was also selected in the 35th Tokyo International Film festivals main slate for its Asian Premiere distributed by a contra Coran films it was theatrically released in Spain on the 11th of November 2022 by the end of the year it had grossed Euro 3.6 million at the Spanish box office the sixth highest grossing Spanish film overall latio films licensed us rights on the film to Greenwich entertainment which released it in limited theaters on the 28th of July 2023 new carand distributor keron also acquired rights to the film according to the review aggregation Rotten Tomatoes the beasts has a 98% of approval rating based on 56 reviews from critics with an average rating of 8.6 out of 10 the s's critics consensus reads Rodrigo soran throws us into rural gisha with the beasts where tension and unease spread like wildfire in a scorching tale of decayed human nature 29 Metacritic assigned the film awaited average score of 85 out of 100 based on 17 critics indicating Universal acclaim 32 Wendy ey of screen Dilly deemed the film to be a terrific psychological Thriller and a brooding muscular piece of film making which makes the most of both the Galician backdrop and the imposing physicality of menochet and as his Nemesis Zan the remarkable LS zahura 11 Manu yenes of fotogramas rated the film three out of five stars writing that soran shows his talent for generating situations charged with latent hostility assessing the way soran manages the tempo of each scene to be the best about the film while drawing out the grotesque portrait of the inhabitants of rural Gala close to caricature as the worst thing about it 33 [Music] Rell Hernandez Luan of habac cons Solas rated the beasts with 85 points very good highlighting the tension throughout its first hour as well as the performances by ment FES in Zahara as the films Stand Out 34 Eric Ortiz Gara of screen Anarchy assessed that the film stands out for its accomplished sequences of mundane tension in Crescendo and for the complex background of the conflict Marta Med of L confidential rated the film four out of five stars assessing it to have its best ally in its formal cleanliness in its conciseness in August 2022 the members of The Academy of cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain selected the beasts in their short list of three pre selections for their submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International feature film alongside alaras and lullabi on its surface the beasts an atmospheric Spanish True Crime Thriller seems like a bleak Parable a pair of Outsiders inspired by real life Dutch Eco Farmers Margot and Martin verond find themselves trapped in a heated dispute with their provincial Galan neighbors the agreed farmer Zam Lewis zahura and his skittish brother Lauren Diego anido resent the non-native couple Olga and Antoine Marina FES and Denise mayet for preventing the sale of their land to a wind turbine company so Olga pleads with Antoine to avoid or at least stop covertly filming an increasingly combative xan that's easier said than done for antoin given both xan and Lorenzo's aggressive and antagonistic Behavior the resulting conflict also seems fairly straightforward while xan resents Anne Beyond Reason Anne refuses to abandon his land thankfully coow writer/director Rodrigo soran's focus on Antoine and xan's emotionally charged stalemate keeps the beasts from devolving into yet another quazi Artful and pseudo moral genre movie that pits intolerant bumpkins against ignorant City Slickers mood trumps Morality In the beasts partly because Sor goyan in collaboration with Director of Photography Alejandro deblo art director Jose torado and sound designer Fabiola oroo among others focuses on the stale air and the Dead Leaves that cling to the almost deceased castillan Village of Quin de bares about a 35-minute drive from the nearest inhabited City a half stifling and half enchanting air of stagnation only deepens the character's petulent self-serving dialogue not to mention their predictably fruitless and perpetually ES escalating Tit for Tat fighting many filmmakers are praised for making their location shot settings the real stars of their movies the beasts wouldn't be half as compelling if its creators didn't draw so much out of their movies desolate and beautiful ghost town soran was smart to emphasize both in his movie and an interview in the movie's press notes that the beasts only uses real events as a starting point because while the Grievances that Define both Antoine and Zan maybe topical neither character is much more compelling rather the beasts is arresting because of its Creator's stylized vision of reality some long takes present time in a naturalistic way and some indoor scenes use natural looking light to deepen our appreciation of what qula debarges looks and sounds like these fairly standard film making techniques also redirect our attention to the oppressive Stillness that surrounds Antoine and xan soroy and characters repeatedly bump into each other and just as often but heads despite tentative and often sincere looking offers to hear each other out by focusing on the impenetrable glooms surrounding antoin xan and their respective partners soroy and makes the beasts more about the tragic inevitability of his protagonists dispute than whatever they say they're fighting for the beasts also deserves praise for its Ensemble casts uniformly strong performances is especially since neither Zahara nor anido have had much experience as professional movie actors soran and a Pablo's camera moves with purpose leaving viewers with the impression that we're either trailing after Anin and xan or looking up with them as they struggle to anticipate whatever's about to happen they retrace their steps slowly sometimes even literally uphill or balance and shift on their back feet waiting for something there sure is coming but still can't fully prepare for that's a nightmarish head space the kind that great horror movies thrive on the beasts is ultimately a parable about neighbors who keep looking at each other with anger and sadness for an impossible Miracle they sort of get one but it provides no relief soran who co-wrote the beasts with Isabelle Pena breaks his story into two uneven halves the second of which shifts the plots Focus away from antoin and onto Olga and Marie Marie column their frustrated daughter a seemingly inevitable plot twist necessitates this narrative break but even then the movie is more about the sheer intensity of its character's emotional deadlock nobody cares about the truth Marie says and she's right of course Olga is also right when she tells Marie you don't understand because Marie has not lived in Quin La deas for as long as she has so she hasn't taken in as much dead comforting air as her mother soran and Pena May ultimately lead us alongside their characters to a Pious anticlimactic finale but it's almost hard to care given how real antoin and xan's world seems the toxic air surrounding these two characters does not clear by the movie's end it accretes and suffocates everyone who breathes it Antoine and xan's dispute is therefore less about turf or hurt feelings than how the world looks when you're waiting for the worst to happen it does and it's as obvious and upsetting as it needs to be the beasts may not be realistic but it is genuinely Eerie 50-some French couple Anne and his wife Olga moved to gisha looking for a fresh start instead they find only hostility and hardship in Rodrigo sagoian the beasts a deeply uncomfortable portrait of everyday evil that's all the more terrifying for being true not the two main characters who are fictional but the conflict that comes to Define their new life in that wild corner of Northwest Spain Antoine played by Denny's mochet a sturdy bear-like man with a James gandal escreen presence buys a modest plot on a primeval slope fixing up the crumbling Stone Cottage into something cozy enough to call home he and Olga Marina F who is build first but takes her time to emerge as the film's main character are fully prepared to face the Challen Alles of raising crops on such unforgiving soil what they're not prepared for is the open resentment of their xenophobic neighbors 52-year-old xan Lewis zahura and his brother Lauren Diego anido who was kicked in the head by a horse at some point and has the jagged Scar and Blank Stare to show for it these two have lived in the same spot all their lives and don't take kindly to Outsiders coming in and changing things or not changing them as the case may be since Antoine casts a deciding vote that prevents wind turbines from being installed blocking the poor brothers from an easy Payday the movie opens with slow motion footage of a local tradition called a rapadas pastas in which rugged men grapple with wild horses wrestling them long enough to trim their Mains before turning the animals loose again it's an evocative ritual representing the brute struggle between species of metaphor that informs all that follows soroy is constantly reminding audiences of the relationship between man and animal from Antoine's Forest walks with his trusty alation to the shotgun blasts fired by offscreen hunters there can be no question whom he considers to be the real threat in the beasts an unconventional yet idea-driven crime film that like Dominic mauls the Knight of the 12th so thoroughly avoids sensationalizing the violence at its Center that it all but flew beneath the radar at the 2020 two can's Film Festival Knight went on to win the Cesar while beasts racked up nine goas in its native Spain suggesting that both ought to have been in competition maybe beasts was too much like Romanian director Christian mongu RN which also deconstructs the tensions among European communities threatened by globalization and change RN made all of $50,000 in US theaters whereas slow burned beasts is enough of a thriller that it could develop a cult following it helps that soran has found the year's best villain in longtime collaborator Zahara who transforms himself into a hostile creature glowering at Antoine and taunting him with insults xan calls his neighbor Fran translated here as Frenchie mocking the outsider's accent over a nerve-wracking game of Dominos and every subsequent time their paths cross zahara's menacing body language matched by an anxious string score and arms length camera work as if even DP alandro deblo is wary of getting two close establishes a sense of dread so acute and pervasive it can be hard for audiences to breathe at times in bed at night alga gazes over her husband's shoulder and sees two men lurking outside their window tending their small but sturdy patch of tomatoes they find signs of lead poisoning and Trace the cause to a pair of car batters thrown into their well only one person could have been responsible for sabotaging their entire crop the beasts reflects a form of violence that isn't at all rare in the real world however seldom it may be depicted in the movies when your new neighbors turn out to be a nightmare it's strange that filmmakers don't dramatize this phenomenon more often considering how often it's happened to people I know there was the guy who bought a multi-million dollar mansion only to have the Mobsters next door sabotaged the water line sending the clear message that they intended him to sell the house to them or the one whose neighbors operated a noisy Body Shop out of their garage when he reported them to the city they retaliated by cutting his brakes luckily he discovered the problem before the car crashed there's almost nothing to be done in such situations but move the cops in both cases admitted as much here Antoine goes to the local police and they hardly take him seriously he buys a video camera and starts to record his increasingly aggressive interactions with the neighbors who may not be educated but aren't stupid either olre recognizes the growing risk and begs her husband to diffuse the situation somehow instead it gets worse the film's big scene is upsetting and Unforgettable one of those movie moments you can't unsee and which seems destined to haunt you for years to come as the thing we've been dreading since the beginning comes to pass it arrives earlier than we might expect a tragic echo of the opening footage of the robaba but the film doesn't end there shifting its focus from Antoine to Ola who's obliged to reckon with her husband's actions soran includes an astonishing scene with the couple's daughter Marie Marie colum who pleads with her mother to leave this place which soroy en Likens to the wild west adopting certain codes of genre in his treatment of a dangerous and still Untamed Frontier the actor Marina foes who plays Olga began her career making frivolous comedies but she's Fierce and uncompromising here while much of the film plays out in subtext the script which Sor goyan co-wrote with Isabelle Pena gives both sides room to express their anxieties ultimately rewarding the character who finds the human solution to a seemingly unresolvable conflict across a measured but never sluggish 137 minute runtime soran and co-writer Isabelle penar escalating tensions in stages as slow but inexurable as changes of weather as an impass presence itself the local men folk first make their displeasure known through passive aggressive exchanges with Antoine at the Village bar less passively they then resort to poisoning the couple's water supply it's not the most drastic measure they'll take assuming foreigners perspective the beasts cultivates a tightening sense of Terror as it Dawns on Antoine and Olga that they have no allies in this battle even as notionally civil relations break down however the film doesn't quite make villains of their antagonists there's a palpable worn to the Bone hunger to the brother's Relentless campaign that remains glumly sympathetic even when it lurches far beyond the bounds of reasonability zahur is gnarled Wy performance partly keeps in play the question of whether xan is driven to deranged measures by need or whether his neighbor's resistance to his demands merely aggravates a latent psychotic streak for much of its duration even in its most deliberate stretches the beasts is kept taught by the gruff Alpha staring contest between him and Mayo's bearish man of admittedly self-serving principle but it only takes one to Blink for the flinty loyal perennially underestimated Olga played by foes with a grave implacable certainty in all she does to emerge as a secret weapon and for the film hither to an apparent departure from sagoian female driven 2019 melodrama mother in its preponderance of sweaty scowling testosterone to reveal its Steely feminist spine Antoine and Olga played by Denise mayet and Marina F feel at home in the rural galish village where they live and farm some of their neighbors however see things different they view Antoine and Olga as Outsiders an educated French couple who do not deserve to be here two brothers xan and Lorenzo Lewis Zahara and Diego anido especially resent Antoine and Olga for voting against the construction of a wind turbine that would give xan and Lorenzo money such antagonism builds increasingly throughout this riveting rural Thriller by Spanish director Rodrigo soran the beasts is soran's can's debut he previously received an Oscar nomination for his short film matter and the San Sebastian jury prize for May God save us in 2016 the beasts has already received a claim at cans and was awarded the audience Award for best European film at San Sebastian boasting powerful performances and some impressive long takes the beasts continues to cement soran's place as one of the preeminent contemporary Spanish directors from the opening scene which features slow motion footage of farm hands tackling a wild horse at galicia's rapadas Bas Fiesta there is an intensity and brutality to the beasts however this echo of violence is hidden just below the surface every time Antoine goes for a drink at the local bar there is a constant Aura of aggression between him and the two brothers xan and Lorenzo like a flood about to burst xan antagonizes Antoine at every opportunity slowly but surely escalating the conflict to a point of no return amidst the gorgeous Lush landscape of gisha soran injects a pulsing unnerving score that reflects the building hostility between the two households the surrounding Farmland maybe Antoine and Olga's Joy but the isolation is also a constant threat the beasts features powerful performances from all the major players and soran allows these performances to come alive through his repeated use of long takes there are multiple scenes that last for over 10 minutes without cuts they never feel showy or overdone but instead let the momentum build naturally highlighting the incredible acting and the tense dialogue with the backdrop of rural gisha the beasts is definitively Spanish but it touches on familiar themes the underlying tension between outside and local educated and uneducated urban and rural is the core of of all great rural Thrillers hearkening back to the films of Borman and pekena however soran goes beyond this layering on the tension and rooting it in our contemporary Moment In addition to the urban versus rural tension there are hints of nationalism and xenophobia local Galician Farmers versus the French newcomers living in Spain as well as deep issues of class for the farmers xan and Lorenzo who have been working the land for decades the de velopment of a wind turbine represents a way out of a life of misery and hardship for Antoine and Olga the wealthy foreigners who have been playing at farming for 2 years as xan puts it the unspoiled land is worth far more than the money this theme of gentrification specifically the selling of traditional land for environmental projects feels profoundly relevant in rural communities across Spain as well as the Netherlands and other countries across the globe traditional farming methods are running up against Economic Development and new Environmental Policy this is also a major theme in alcaraz another 2022 Spanish film currently running the festival circuit however in the beasts thematic elements ultimately Fade to the background in favor of the film's true purpose to deliver a tense Boiling Pot of a movie with powerful performances taught dialogue and a surprising narrative shift in the third Act the beasts is a remarkable film and one of the most gripping rural Thrillers in recent memory The Ten Commandments teach us to Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself including fellow humans animals and all life however in Rodrigo Soro is the beasts as Bas that commandment goes out the window the four walls we live within are meant to be our Sanctuary protecting us from the Wilderness of the outside world however we cannot control those who become our neighbors life can be great and we may get on really well with our neighbors but there are also times when peace can evaporate into a living hell all thanks to something big or even trivial spare a thought or two for Anne and Olga played by dennise mayet and Marina Faris who have set up home in Northwest Spain they live in a village in the gisha region of the country where they grow their own vegetables and sell them in the local Village Market additionally they repair and refurbish abandoned Cottages in their local area on paper their life looks quiet and even idilic Antoine and Olga have many friends in the local area but they also have many who despise them because they are French we first meet Anne who sits quietly in the bar in his village while the local men joke about the French invasion of Spain during the Napoleonic War in 1808 one man in particular is leading the resentment and hatred towards antoin xan played by Lewis Zahara he calls him Frenchie and while to some that might seem like friendly banter it suggests that something troubling is brewing we soon learned that the epicenter of the resentment is when Norwegian developers approach the villagers to build a wind farm in the area promising Financial rewards to everyone who agrees to the development Antoine and Olga are the only two who reject the proposal which angers xan and his younger brother Lorenzo played by Diego anido the banter and jokes the brothers play on their French neighbors gradually escalate and tensions and tempers rise to a point of no return suggesting that something unexpected could happen the beasts is a slow burning psychological drama Thriller that utilizes mind gains resulting in pure hatred xenophobia societal discrimination and retribution Antoine and Olga's middle class status adds another layer of tension to the story becoming a tale of the halves and have knots and class tensions fueling the brothers anger even more xan calls them hobbyists as their move to Spain is a lifestyle change the brothers and other locals have a difficult life working long hours in harsh surroundings yet still remaining impoverished the money from the wind farm would have been an opportunity to step out of poverty and get their mother her own home the opening credits scene sets the tone for the film as we watch two men grapple with wild horses at the rapadas The staz Taming of the beasts Festival which takes place in Galicia the festival has been around for 400 years and xan is determined to take down antoy the scene suggests that violence and aggression are simmering just beneath the surface and it slowly begins to emerge as the story unfolds ultimately this results in a tragic event that occurs later in the film soran explores the differences between how Antoine and Olga handled the situation they handle things completely differently Antoine tries to face the problem headon only to make things worse while Olga tries to diffuse things in the latter part of the beasts when the tone of the film becomes less oppressive tensions still exist and Olga stamps her own retribution on the brothers not physically but by making them feel guilty Olga is joined by her daughter Marie played by Mary colum and fear and Melancholy take over Denny's menochet is not a small man his performance shows vulnerability and fear that comes to all of us regardless of our stature despite his imposing size he realizes that he's up against the brothers Zahara and anido who are brilliantly menacing and creepy and who know the land Inside Out Marina f is superb with persuasive qualities and she is also determined and fearless as Olga the beasts drags a little in the final third however the tension does reside throughout the film the film takes us to some dark uncomfortable places that would easily fit into Sam peeken Straw Dogs or a Michael Hank film although it runs just over the 2hour mark stick with it and you'll be rewarded with a gripping unsettling Thriller that reminds us that monsters do exist as daily news reports remind us the world is engaged in yet another devastating International conflict if it isn't war in Ukraine then it's war in Israel but no matter what governments are involved when such clashes occur it's the ordinary citizens who as usual get caught in the crossfire the same of course occurs among individuals in the Spanish French film the beasts the person so caught is Olga played by Marina fo she is married to Antoine played by dennise mayet and the two French expatriates have moved to a remote Farm in Galicia in the northwest of Spain where they hope to make a living as organic farmers [Music] though the film's director and co-screenwriter Rodrigo soran doesn't provide much of a backstory it's clear that the brothers and Anne have a history and it isn't one based on any sense of amiability which we discover early on when Antoine becomes the target of Zen's mean spirited jibes during a spirited game of dominoes what we eventually discover is that the brothers Harbor a deep resentment of Antoine and Olga not just because they come from out of town though xan has a nasty way of calling Antoine in particular Frenchie no the resentment runs even deeper than the anger the brothers feel over Anne and Olga's refusal to okay a plan to build a series of windmills on nearby land a plan that the brothers believe will bring them some much needed income but one that Antoine in particular believes is a scam in one extended scene which begins with Anne's attempting to reach a spirit of accord with the brother Zan Bears all he a guy in his 50s is jealous of everything Anne represents the kind of gentleman farmer who has intruded on land that xan and others have labored on all their lives making decisions that xan believes he has no right in doing it's at the end of this scene that we know nothing good is bound to follow if any of this sounds familiar it may be because it Bears a strong resemblance to a real life story that occurred at the turn of the century in the Galan Village Village of Santa ulia a name that time has shortened to santala it was in the 1990s that a Dutch couple Maron verond and Margo P came to santala with the same intentions as the fictional Olga and Denny Anne their story was told in the 2016 feature titled simply enough santala which was co-directed by Andrew Becker and Daniel mea a documentary that Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth tan wrote focuses on how the best intentions toward Humanity are not enough if an ability to actually get along with fellow human beings is not part of the mix that certainly describes antoin an outwardly genial guy who as the film progresses becomes less so both to the consternation of Olga and ultimately to his own well-being he spends an inordinate amount of time videotaping the ongoing friction as it grows with both brothers which becomes at least seemingly a plot point when he suddenly disappears writer director soroy shows us The Secret of that disappearance though Olga remains in the dark she continues to work the farm while continually hounding the local authorities and as happened in the real case several years pass represented by a full 45 minutes of the film's 2hour and 17-minute running time before the mystery of Antoine's fate is revealed the beasts is available to watch through any one of several streaming services as baz as the film is titled in gal ended up winning nine goas Spain's highest film award including best film Best Director best actor for mayet and best supporting actor for Zahara it also won Fran's Cesar Award for best foreign film meanwhile Olga's real life counterpart Margo P to whom the film is dedicated still lives in santala a reminder that no matter how serious a conflict might be wife has a way of forging on after a mesmerizing slow motion sequence of men struggling to pin down a wild horse Rodrigo sorgan the Beast dives into the Bad Blood between its characters already on the verge of boiling over the first scene with characters and dialogue takes place in a bar serving as the social heart of the unnamed Galician Mountain Village where the story is set Men drink and play dominoes around a table but the mood is any anything but relaxed doe in part to the film's Natural lighting so thin it looks almost fragile one of the men xan an Lewis zahura propped up at every turn by his younger brother Lorenzo Diaga anido dominates the conversation with venomous gossip we sense that this is a daily Ritual from the outset it's clear that the beasts is no cozy small town drama but something more akin to a rural Noir peopled with Petty embittered character characters ruled by tradition and Instinct the bar scene establishes the film's penchant for Meandering dialogues that amass tension until without warning they erupt into conflict it's no accident that the game of choice is dominoes and not say chess for it alludes to how the film's plot is structured as a Cascade of chain reactions with its origins in a hazy past where every attempt by at resolving disputes only exacerbates them even the horse wrestling sequence turns out to be one such Domino but the bar scene also exhibits the film's most audacious feature its willingness to switch protagonists for much of the scene's duration xan suggests that he'll be the central focus of the beasts and then a character referred disparagingly as Frenchie Denny's Mayo at leaves in discomfort and the camera unexpectedly follows him out instead of remaining with the conversation though up to this point the camera has centered Zan soran has subtly prepared Us by opening in media resz to identify with Anne who as an immigrant finds himself in over his head in this village with its opaque rules and deep-seated grudges for the time being at least anwin becomes the film's protagonist and we learn how he and his wife wga Marina fiz immigrated to Galicia 2 years prior from France to begin a new life as organic farmers both are educated and well traveled putting them at odds with villagers set in their ways and suspicious of Outsiders he's already made himself an enemy of xan by voting against the installation of wind turbines which would have come with a lump sum for the villagers but the Beast is even handed in its representations Antoine may be the central character but he's not entirely sympathetic especially in his dismissive treatment of Olga likewise xan may be vile but complexly so as he shows real love for his family his belief that Antoine is the tip of the spear whether intentionally or not of a coming gentrification that threatens to turn his home into a resort for wealthy tourists isn't without basis he nicknames Anne Toano the Conquistador connecting him ironically with France's invasion of Spain during the Napoleonic era as if Antoine were still culpable for historical transgressions enmity between the two rapidly Fester as neither man is willing to back down from the conflict to the brink of absurdity and in a brief evocative sequence that finds Anne paying a visit to some wind turbines in the neighboring Community it's hard not to think of Don kot tilting at windmills unable to distinguish reality from his chaval delusions what throws xan over the edge more than anything is Antoine's attempt to film it the Beast suggests that film's vaunted documentary power has it subscene side as an ocular weapon for Anne's vigilante surveillance is hardly objective and only ever escalates the Domino like effect of the Collision Course that they seem to be on this leads inexorably to the most dramatic pivot in the beasts when Olga and to a lesser extent her daughter Marie Marie colum become the protagonist the film then is as much about the beastliness of xan and Anne's outmoded machismo as it is about the persever and fortitude of women in opposition to it all this action unfolds against a mountainous backdrop as Bleak as it is savagely beautiful even so the film can tend to rely overly on its rustic picturesque setting and the intricacies of its plot coming off more as a vehicle for soroy and Isabelle Pena's screenwriting than visual ideas it has a distinctive look but one that remains static over 2 plus hours viewers may find themselves hankering for more sequences like the opening which explicates the story's themes of stagnation and brutality without a single line of dialog only the image of a horse's nostrils flaring in slow motion framed by the men's tattooed arm muscles you may remember french actor dennise mayet as The Farmer in the Tau opening scene of Quenton Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards performing opposite Kristoff Walt now after many International roles including one W in Ari asers Bo is afraid mayet has won a Goya award one of the nine that director Rodrigo soran's blood boiling Thriller the beasts collected at the Spanish Oscars for playing a different kind of farmer in a desolate Galician Town Mayo chitz Antoine and his wife VGA Marina FIS grow vegetables to sell and rebuild houses which they then give away for free to encourage locals to stay and to entice new people to come but their efforts go against the longtime residents eagerness to sell their land for incoming wind turbines Antoine and Olga's Nextdoor neighbors Zan Lewis Zahara a spiteful drunk who holds court at the area's only bar and his cognitively impaired brother Lorenzo Diego anido are their worst enemies hiding thinly veiled vitrio the siblings refer to anine as Frenchie and invoke Napoleon bonapart military campaign to conquer gisha as reason enough to like him Anne's mere presence feels humiliating to them his refusal to sell preventing everyone else from cashing in makes him a Target acting in two languages mayet initially comes across as a beacon of Serenity his Burly build notwithstanding but that slowly morphs into constant exasperation when the siblings poison antoin crops and taunt him at night the actor conveys the character's growing sense of anger behind a soft s expression of masculinity that hopes to protect and Do no harm he's at the opposite end of the spectrum from xan and Lorenzo ready for a clash still the Frenchman tries to reason with them over drinks and carries around a small video camera to document his bully Behavior Olga disapproves of her husband's tactics what's the point of living there if they must do so in fear early on soran reveals a frustrating Dynamic the authorities side with the brothers excusing their behavior as that of simple people who unlike the worldly Anne and Olga Have Nothing Left to Lose the burden of Civility the police claim falls on the couple there's no satisfying resolution in sight for the class conundrum sagoian and his co-writer Isabelle Pena introduce is it fair for these foreigners well meaning though they are to impose their will on several families desperate to escape their miserable circumstances for those accustomed to abject poverty even the crumbs being offered the predatory wind turbine Company Feel Like A Life altering Victory Antoine and Olga are guilty of gentrifying the place for their loftier dreams of sustainability yet that still doesn't justify the Primal instincts that drive xan and Lorenzo as with all great moral dilemmas sagoian makes it impossible to entirely side with either party without considering that each of them has been victimized by larger social ills and that's the visceral potency of the beasts which suggests that in order to take another person's life you have to see them as less than human or less than yourself for its second half in the aftermath of a Twist that shouldn't be spoiled the film takes on an unexpected depth and even a semblance of closure though it shouldn't be a surprise that no one fully gets what they want true horror lies not in the actual presentation of the said horror but in the certainty of its imminent arrival in the feelings of expectation the weight and the dread persistent Insidious mentally torturous Spanish director Rodrigo soran knows exactly how to portray this most effectively on screen since his Slow Burn drama Thriller the beasts as baz is one highly palpable mesmerizingly and snaring exploration of psychological persecution and bullying grounded in Stark realism when French couple Antoine and old mayet and Marina foes arrived to a rural community in gisha Spain they wanted only the best for the area and its people quietly starting their Farm restoring old houses around them and connecting with a local market however not everyone was happy to see them and when the new wind energy project suddenly needs more signatories two local Brothers Zan Lewis Zahara and Lorenzo Diego and Ido think that a terror campaign against the French expats is the only solution there is something about French produced films about eccentric Outsiders who come to rural communities and disrupt lives their Gene deflet 1986 chocolot 2000 which simply intrigued the core of the drama is a person pinned against his new environment and neighbors the beasts allegedly inspired by a real story of 2010c documentary santala 2016 also purports to tap into just this wealth of opportunities for drama however the end product here is not just some run of the mill domestic drama but one Exquisite savagery after such films as the candidate 2018 and mother 2019 in the beasts director Sor goyan is again in a familiar territory of intricate drama at the heart of which are complex interpersonal relationships that work as catalysts for emergencies to come Anan and Olga seem to have settled in Rural galtia and work as farmers and home restorers and they also have friends two friends in fact the only friends another local farmer and his wife the time then comes when Anne and Olga are hesitant to sign a document handled recently to local residents for the permission to convert most of the local land to a renewable energy project that would give some money to the residents but would also Rob them of their land thus immediately this tale feels very modern the opposition to a renewable energy development and as old as time of friction between old and new neighbors at the same time local manzan is angry about Antoine's stubbornness not to do what businesses in the area demand but his hatred for his neighbor seems to have deeper Roots as the attacks on Antoine and Olga grow in a crescendo fashion from Cruel jokes targeting Antoine's nationality to poisoning their water supply it is when the police turn a blind eye on the happenings that Anne starts to believe that recording The Bullying is the only weapon has where this film turns truly harrowing is when we realize the extent of xan and Lorenzo's psychological abuse campaign against antoin and Olga a seemingly straightforward unassuming plot of a neighbor's conflict takes on proportions worthy of a tactic in a historical battle as the camera circles antwine and follows his movements around the area from a local pub to a shop from his dog walk to his car trip the danger is constantly there and the very air once Antoine's car breaks down and xan is seemingly willing to help will he The Genius of the film is that we do not know what kind of a blow Antoine would receive or when it is just the certainty of the trouble to come that is clear as the tensions in the story Mount so the film gets more nuanced the best scenes are to be found in the film's middle and end where the dialogues between Antoine and xan and between Olga and her daughter Marie Marie column display the film's range of intricacies and insights into the human nature there are no special effects or other tricks here to distract the viewer just simple magic flowing from immersive direct film making the dialogues are raw hidden emotions finally coming to the surface human interactions filmed to Perfection the conflict is self-interest greed Envy frustration and misunderstanding that can no longer lay dormant and fear it is in Nate the music sets the tone the score by oliv arson is hypnotizing minimalism full of tribal beats that underscores either the moments of intimacy between Antoine and Olga or the pivotal confrontations between the couple and their neighbors and there is even a visual reference to the Silence of the Lambs 1991 soran also seems that kind of a director who can elicit the most from his cast as the duo of expats who hope to make it as farmers in their new local both Denny's mayet and Marina foes give performances of much nuance and conviction the former almost in the role of one gentle giant who tries to be friendly to everyone but still has to be on guard seeing all the xenophobia directed at him from all Corners our intense sympathy for antwine comes partly through May noit's ability as an actor to be so reserved and yet say so much through the unspoken displays of humanity and hope as the role of a victim is forced upon him and he finds himself with torn feelings and contradictions a man should be able to defend himself and his family if needed but Antoine is already at the disadvantage both culturally and linguistically not to mention being perceived an outsider and feeling so isolated in his community the beasts shows that enmity can be subtle and Insidious but no less frightening for that and the film's distinction resides in its painstaking exploration of a very human drama a very Vivid drama a drama handled so sensitively and yet with such Vigor the Beast is first and foremost a film of palpable tensions and unwavering conviction it stars Denny mayet Marina fo lisis Zahara Diego anido and Marie colum the film is Loosely inspired by real events involving a Dutch couple in santala a semi-abandoned hamlet of the Spanish Municipality of petan from from 2010 to 2014 it follows a married French couple mayet and Foy settled in the Galan Countryside exploring issues of xenophobia and escalating hostility between neighbors boyed by a conflict VAV a wind farm project arriving to a point of no return the film made its World premiere at the 2022 K's Film Festival on the 26th of May 2022 with a festival run that also included screenings in San Sebastian Tokyo and Chicago it was released theatrically in France on the 20th of July 2022 and in Spain on the 11th of November 2022 the beasts earned a leading 17 nominations including five for acting at the 37th Goya Awards and one n including best film Best Director best original screenplay best actor for mayet and best supporting actor for zahura it also won the caar award for best foreign film the film was produced by Arcadia Motion Pictures cabalo films kronos's entertainment and laati with the participation of rtve movar Plus Canal plus and sin plus support from Ur images and funding from IA the screenplay was penned by soran's longtime collaborator Isabelle Pena and Sor goyan himself the production crew also features other soran's recurring collaborators such as Oliver arson as composer Alex depablo as director of cinematography and Alberto Del Campo as film editor soran reported that he would shoot the film as a western filming began on the 16th of September 2021 and wrapped on the 13th of December 20121 shooting locations included El beo and Inland gisha the beasts debuted in the can's Premier section at the 75th can's Film Festival on the 26th of May 2022 distributed by leaki 19 the film opened in French theaters on the 20th of July 2022 it also screened at the 7th San Sebastion International Film Festival in September 2022 as part of the pearls film slate it was also selected in the 35th Tokyo International Film festival's main slate for its Asian Premiere distributed by a contra Coran film it was theatrically released in Spain on the 11th of November 2022 by the end of the year it had grossed Euro 3.6 million at the Spanish box office the sixth highest grossing Spanish film overall latio films licensed us rights on the film to Greenwich entertainment which released it in limited theaters on the 28th of July 2023 yukarin distributor keron also acquired rights to the film according to the review aggregation Rotten Tomatoes the beasts has a 98% approval rate based on 56 reviews from critics with an average rating of 8.6 out of 10 the s's critics consensus reads Rodrigo soroy and throws us into rural gisha with the beasts where tension and unease spread like wildfire in a scorching tale of decayed human nature 29 Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 85 out of 100 based on 17 critics indicating Universal acclaim 32 Wendy eyed of screen Dilly deemed the film to be a terrific psychological Thriller and a brooding muscular piece of film making which makes the most of both the Galician backdrop and the imposing physicality of menochet and as his Nemesis Zam the remarkable LS zahura 11 Manu yenes of fotogramas rated the film three out of five stars writing that soran shows his talent for generating situations charged with blatant hostility assessing the way soran manages the tempo of each scene to be the best about the film while drawing out the grotesque portrait of the inhabitants of rural Galicia close to caricature as the worst thing about it 33 [Music] Rell Hernandez Luan of habac cons Solas raided the beasts with 85 points very good highlighting attention throughout its first hour as well as the performances by mochit FES and Zara as the film standout 34 Eric Ortiz Gara of screen and Archy assessed that the film stands out for its accomplished sequences of mundane tension in Crescendo and for the complex background of the conflict Marta Meda of LC confidential rated the film four out of five stars assessing it to have its best ally in its formal cleanliness in its conciseness in August 2022 the members of The Academy of cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain selected the beasts in their short list of three pre-selection for their submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International feature film alongside alaras and lullabi on its surface the beasts an atmospheric Spanish True Crime Thriller seems like a bleak Parable a pair of Outsiders inspired by real life Dutch Eco Farmers Margot and Martin verond find themselves trapped in a heated dispute with their provincial Galan neighbors the aggrieved farmer Zam Lewis zahura and his skidish brother Lauren Diego anido resent the non-native couple Olga and Antoine Marina FES and Denise mayet for preventing the sale of their land to a wind turbine company so Olga pleased with antwine to avoid or at least stop covertly filming an increasingly combative xan that's easier said than done for antoinne given both xan and Lorenzo's aggressive and antagonistic Behavior the resulting conflict also seems fairly straightforward while Z man resents Antoine Beyond Reason Anne refuses to abandon his land thankfully co- writer/director Rodrigo Sagan's focus on Antoine and xan's emotionally charged stalemate keeps the beasts from devolving into yet another quisi Artful and pseudo moral genre movie that pits intolerant bumpkins against ignorant City Slickers mood Trump's Morality In the beasts partly because Sor goyan in collaboration with Director of Photography Ro dep Pablo art director Jose Tado and sound designer Fabiola oroo among others focuses on the stale air and the Dead Leaves that cling to the almost deceased Castilian Village of Quin de bares about a 35-minute drive from the nearest inhabited City a half stifling and half enchanting air of stagnation only deepens the character's petulant self-serving dialogue not to mention their predictably fruitless and perpetually escalating hit for Tat fighting many filmmakers are praised for making their location shot settings the real stars of their movies the beasts wouldn't be half as compelling if its creators didn't draw so much out of their movie's desolate and beautiful ghost town sagoian was smart to emphasize both in his movie and an interview in the movie's press notes that the beasts only uses real events as a starting point because while the Grievances that Define both Antoine and xan may be topical neither character is much more compelling rather the beasts is arresting because of its creator stylized vision of reality some long takes present time in a naturalistic way and some indoor scenes use natural looking light to deepen our appreciation of what quima dearis looks and sounds like these fairly standard film making techniques also redirect our attention to the oppressive Stillness that surrounds Antoine and Zan soran's character repeatedly bump into each other and just as often butt heads despite tentative and often sincere looking offers to hear each other out by focusing on the impenetrable glooms surrounding Antoine xan and their respective Partners soran makes the beasts more about the tragic inevitability of his protagonists dispute than whatever they say they're fighting for the beasts also deserves praise for its Ensemble casts uniformly strong performances especially since neither Zahara nor anido have had much experience as professional movie actors soran and a Pablo's camera moves with purpose leaving viewers with the impression that we're either trailing after antoin and xan or looking up with them as they struggle to anticipate whatever's about to happen they retrace their steps slowly sometimes even literally uphill or balance and shift on their back feet waiting for something there sure is coming but still can't fully prepare for that that's a nightmarish head space the kind that great horror movies thrive on the beasts is ultimately a parable about neighbors who keep looking at each other with anger and sadness for an impossible Miracle they sort of get one but it provides no relief sorag goyan who co-wrote the beasts with Isabelle Pena breaks his story into two uneven halves the second of which shifts the plots Focus away from Anne and onto Olga and Marie Marie column their frustrated daughter a seemingly inevitable plot twist necessitates this narrative break but even then the movie is more about the sheer intensity of its character's emotional deadlock nobody cares about the truth Marie says and she's right of course Olga is also right when she tells Marie you don't understand because Marie has not lived in qula deges for as long as she has so she hasn't taken in as much dead comforting air as her mother soran and Pena May ultimately lead us alongside their characters to a Pious anticlimactic phenone but it's almost hard to care given how real an twine and xan's world seems the toxic air surrounding these two characters does not clear by the movie's end it accretes and suffocates everyone who breeds it Antoine and xan's dispute is therefore less about turf or hurt feelings than how the world looks when you're waiting for the worst to happen it does and it's as obvious and upsetting as it needs to be the beasts may not be realistic but it is genuinely Eerie 50-some French couple Antoine and his wife Olga moved to gisha looking for a fresh start instead they find only hostility and hardship in Rodrigo sagoian the beasts a deeply uncomfortable portrait of everyday evil that's all the more terrifying for being true not the two main characters who are fictional but the conflict that comes to Define their new life in that wild corner of Northwest Spain Antoine played by Denis mayet a sturdy bear-like man with a James gandal esque screen presence buys a modest plot on a primeval slope fixing up the crumbling Stone Cottage into something cozy enough to call home he and Olga Marina F who is build first but takes her time to emerge as the film's main character are fully prepared to face the challenges of raising crops on such unforgiving soil what they're not prepared for is the open resentment of their xenophobic neighbors 52-year-old xan Lewis Zahara and his brother Lauren Diego anido who was kicked in the head by a horse at some point and has the jagged Scar and Blank Stare to show for it these two have lived in the same spot all their lives and don't take kindly to Outsiders coming in and changing things or not changing them as the case may be since anine casts a deciding boat that prevents wind turbines from being installed blocking the poor brothers from an easy Payday the movie opens with slow motion footage of a local tradition called aradas pastas in which rugged men grapple with wild horses wrestling them long enough to trim their mans before turning the animals loose again it's an evocative ritual representing the brute struggle between species of metaphor that informs all that follows Dyan is constantly reminding audiences of the relationship between man and animal from Antoine's Forest walks with his trusty alation to the shotgun blasts fired by offscreen hunters there can be no question whom he considers to be the real threat in the beasts an unconventional yet idea-driven crime film that like Dominic mauls the Knight of the 12th so thoroughly avoids sensationalizing the violence at its Center that it all but flew beneath the radar at the 2022 camp Film Festival Knight went on to win the Cesar while beasts racked up nine goas in its native Spain suggesting that both ought to have been in competition maybe beasts was too much like Romanian director Christian mungu rmn which also deconstructs the tensions among European communities threatened by globalization and change rmn made all of $50,000 in US theaters whereas Slow Burn beasts is enough of a thriller that it could develop a cult following it helps that soran has found the year's best villain in longtime collaborator Zahara who transforms himself into a hostile creature glowering at Antoine and taunting him with insults xan calls his neighbor Fran translated here as Frenchie mocking The Outsider accent over a nerve-wracking game of dominoes and every subsequent time their paths cross zahara's menacing body language Touched by an anxious string score and arms length camera work as if even DP alandro dep Pablo is wary of getting too close establishes a sense of dread so acute and pervasive it can be hard for audiences to breathe at times in bed at night Olga gazes over her husband's shoulder and sees two men lurking outside their window tending their small but sturdy patch of tomatoes they find signs of lead poisoning and Trace the cause to a pair of car batteries thrown into their well only one person could have been responsible for sabotaging their entire crop the beasts reflects a form of violence that isn't at all rare in the real world however seldom it may be depicted in the movies when your new neighbors turn out to be a nightmare it's strange that filmmakers don't dramatize this phenomenon more often considering how often it's happened to people I know there was the guy who bought a multi-million dollar mansion only to have the mobster ERS next door sabotaged the water line sending the clear message that they intended him to sell the house to them or the one whose neighbors operated a noisy Body Shop out of their garage when he reported them to the city they retaliated by cutting his brakes luckily he discovered the problem before the car crashed there's almost nothing to be done in such situations but move the cops in both cases admitted as much here Antoine goes to the local police and they hardly take him seriously he buys a video camera and starts to record his increasingly aggressive interactions with the neighbors who may not be educated but aren't stupid either olar recognizes the growing risk and begs her husband to diffuse the situation somehow instead it gets worse the film's big scene is upsetting and Unforgettable one of those movie moments you can't unsee and which seems destined to haunt you for years to come as the thing we've been dreading since the beginning comes to pass it arrives earlier than we might expect a tragic echo of the opening footage of the Raa but the film doesn't end there shifting its focus from Antoine to Olga who's obliged to reckon with her husband's actions soran includes an astonishing scene with the couple's daughter Marie Marie colum who pleads with her mother to leave this place which soroy and Likens to the wild west adopting certain codes of the genre in his treatment of a dangerous and still Untamed Frontier the actor Marina foes who plays Olga began her career making frivolous comedies but she's Fierce and uncompromising here while much of the film plays out in subtext the script which Sora goyan co-wrote with Isabelle Pena gives both sides room to express their anxieties ultimately rewarding the character who finds the human solution to a seemingly unresolvable conflict across a measure but never sluggish 137 minute runtime soran and co-writer Isabelle penar escalating tensions in stages as slow but inexurable as changes of weather as an impass presence itself the local men folk first make their displeasure known through passive aggressive exchanges with Anne at the Village bar less passively they then resort to poisoning the couple's water supply it's not the most drastic measure they'll take assuming the foreigners perspective the beasts cultivates a tightening sense of Terror as it Dawn on Antoine and Olga that they have no allies in this battle even as notionally civil relations break down however the film doesn't quite make villains of their antagonists there's a palpable warn to the Bone hunger to the brothers Relentless campaign that remains glumly sympathetic even when it lurches far beyond the bounds of reasonability zahur is gnarled Wy performance smartly keep keeps in play the question of whether xan is driven to deranged measures by need or whether his neighbor's resistance to his demands merely aggravates a latent psychotic streak for much of its duration even in its most deliberate stretches the beasts is kept taught by the gruff Alpha staring contest between him and Mayo's bearish man of admittedly self-serving principle but it only takes one to Blink for the flinty loyal perennially underestimated Olga played by father with a grave implacable certainty in all she does to emerge as a secret weapon and for the film hither to an apparent departure from soran's female driven 2019 melodrama mother in its preponderance of sweaty scowling testosterone to reveal its Steely feminist spine Antoine and Olga played by dennise mayet and Marina foes feel at home in the rural galish village where they live and farm some of their neighbors however see things differently they view Antoine and Olga as Outsiders an educated French couple who do not deserve to be here two brothers Zan and Lorenzo Lewis Zahara and Diego anido especially resent Antoine and Olga for voting against the construction of a wind turbine that would give xan and Lorenzo money such antagonism builds increasingly throughout this riveting rural Thriller by Spanish director Rodrigo soran the beasts is soran's K's debut he previously received an Oscar nomination for his short film matter and the San Sebastian jury prize for May God save us in 2016 the beasts has already received a claim at can's and was awarded the audience Award for best European film at s Sebastian boasting powerful performances and some impressive long takes the beasts continues to cement soran's place as one of the preeminent contemporary Spanish directors from the opening scene which features slow motion footage of farm hands tackling a wild horse at galicia's rapidas Bastas Fiesta there is an intensity and brutality to the Beast however this echo of violence is hidden just below the surface every time Antoine goes for a drink at the local bar there is a constant Aura of aggression between him and the two brothers xan and Lorenzo like a flood about to burst xan antagonizes Anne at every opportunity slowly but surely escalating the conflict to a point of no return amidst the gorgeous Lush landscape of gisha soran injects a pulsing unnerving score that reflects the building hostility between the two households the surrounding Farmland may be Antoine and Olga's Joy but the isolation is also a constant threat the beasts features powerful performances from all the major players and sagoian allows these performances to come alive through his repeated use of of long takes there are multiple scenes that last for over 10 minutes without cuts they never feel showy or overdone but instead let the momentum build naturally highlighting the incredible acting and the tense dialogue with the backdrop of rural gisha the beasts is definitively Spanish but it touches on familiar themes the underlying tension between outside and local educated and uneducated urban and rural is the core of all great rural Thrillers hearkening back to the films of Borman and pekena however soran goes beyond this layering on the tension and rooting it in our contemporary Moment In addition to the urban versus rural tension there are hints of nationalism and xenophobia local Galan Farmers versus the French newcomers living in Spain as well as deep issues of class for the farmers xan and Lorenzo who have been working the land for decades the development of a wind turbine represents a way out of a life of misery and hardship for Antoine and Olga the wealthy foreigners who have been playing at farming for 2 years as xan puts it the unspoiled land is worth far more than the money this theme of gentrification specifically the selling of traditional land for environmental projects feels profoundly relevant in rural communities across Spain as well as the Netherlands and other countries across the globe tradition farming methods are running up against Economic Development and new Environmental Policy this is also a major theme in alarz another 2022 Spanish film currently running the festival circuit however in the beasts thematic elements ultimately Fade to the background in favor of the film's true purpose to deliver a tense Boiling Pot of a movie with powerful performances taught dialogue and a surprising narrative shift in the third Act the beasts is a remarkable film and one of the most gripping rural Thrillers in recent memory The Ten Commandments teach us to Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself including fellow humans animals and all life however in Rodrigo sorag is the beasts as Bas that commandment goes out the window the four walls we live within are meant to be our Sanctuary protecting us from the Wilderness of the outside world however we cannot control those who become our neighbors life can be great and we may get on really well with our neighbors but there are also times when peace can evaporate into a living hell all thanks to something big or even trivial spare a thought or two for Anne and Olga played by Dennis mayet and Marina Faris who have set up home in Northwest Spain they live in a village in the galicier region of the country where they grow their own vegetables and sell them in the local Village Market additionally they repair and refurbish abandoned Cottages in their local area on paper their life looks quiet and even idilic Antoine and Olga have many friends in the local area but they also have many who despise them because they are French we first meet antoin who sits quietly in the bar in his village while the local men joke about the French invasion of Spain during the Napoleonic War in 1808 one man in particular is is leading the resentment and hatred towards Antoine xan played by LS Zahara he calls him Frenchie and while to some that might seem like friendly banter it suggests that something troubling is brewing we soon learned that the epicenter of the resentment is when Norwegian developers approach the villagers to build a wind farm in the area promising Financial rewards to everyone who agrees to the development Antoine and Olga are the only two who reject the proposal which angers xan and his younger brother Lorenzo played by Diego anido the banter and jokes the brothers play on their French neighbors gradually escalate and tensions and tempers rise to a point of no return suggesting that something unexpected could happen the beasts is a slow burning psychological drama Thriller that utilizes mind gains resulting in pure hatred xenophobia societal discrimination and retribution Antoine and Olga's middle class status adds another layer of tension to the story becoming a tale of the halves and have knots and class tensions fueling the brothers anger even more xan calls them hobbyists as their move to Spain is a lifestyle change the brothers and other locals have a difficult life working long hours in harsh surroundings yet still remaining impoverished the money from the wind farm would have been an opportunity to step out of poverty and get their mother her own home the opening credits scene sets the tone for the film as we watch two men grapple with wild horses at the rapad Das The staz's Taming of the beasts Festival which takes place in Galicia the festival has been around for 400 years and xan is determined to take down antoin the scene suggests that violence and aggression are simmering just beneath the surface and it slowly begins to emerge as the story unfolds ultimately this results in a tragic event that occurs later in the film soran explores the differences between how Antoine and Olga handled the situation they handle things completely differently Antoine tries to face the problem headon only to make things worse while Olga tries to diffuse things in the latter part of the beasts when the tone of the film becomes less oppressive tensions still exist and Olga stamps her own retribution on the brothers not physically but by making them feel guilty Olga is joined by her daughter Marie played by Mary colum and fear and Melancholy take over Dennis menochet is not a small man his performance shows vulnerability and fear that comes to all of us regardless of our stature despite his imposing size he realizes that he's up against the brothers Zahara and anido who are brilliantly menacing and creepy and who know the land Inside Out Marina f is superb with persuasive qualities and she is also determined and fearless as Olga the Beast drags a little in the final third however the tension does reside throughout the film the film takes us to some dark uncomfortable places that would easily fit into Sam peeken pis Straw Dogs or a Michael Hank film although it runs just over the 2-hour Mark stick with it and you'll be rewarded with a gripping unsettling Thriller that reminds us that monsters do exist as daily news reports remind us the world is engaged in yet another devastating International conflict if it isn't war in Ukraine then it's war in Israel but no matter what governments are involved when such clashes occur it's the ordinary citizens who as usual get caught in the crossfire the same of course occurs among individuals in the Spanish French film the beasts the person so caught is Olga played by Marina F's she is married to Antoine played by dennise mayet and the two French expatriates have moved to a remote Farm in Galicia in the northwest of Spain where they hope to make a living as organic farmers [Music] though the film's director and co-screenwriter Rodrigo soran doesn't provide much of a backstory it's clear that the brothers and Anne have a history and it isn't one based on any sense of amiability which we discover early on when Antoine becomes the target of xan's mean spirited jibes during a spirited game of dominoes what we eventually discover is that the brothers Harbor a deep resentment of Antoine and Olga not just because they come from out of town though xan has a nasty way of calling Antoine in particular Frenchie no the resentment runs even deeper than the anger the brothers feel over Anne and Olga's refusal to okay a plan to build a series of windmills on nearby land a plan that the brothers believe will bring them some much needed income but one that Antoine in particular believes is a scam in one extended scene which begins with Anne's attempting to reach a spirit of accord with the brothers Zan Bears all he a guy in his 50s is jealous of everything antwine represents the kind of gentleman farmer who has intruded on land that xan and others have labored on all their lives making decisions that xan believes he has no right in doing it's at the end of this scene that we know nothing good is bound to follow if any of this sounds familiar it may be because it Bears a strong resemblance to a real life story that occurred at the turn of the century in the Galician Village of Santa ulia a name that time has shortened to santala it was in the 1990s that a Dutch couple Martin boner and Margo P came to santala with the same intentions as the fictional Olga and Denny's Anne their story was told in the 2016 feature titled simply enough santala which was co-directed by Andrew Becker and Daniel mea a documentary that Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Tran wrote focuses on how the best intentions toward Humanity are not enough if an ability to actually get along with fellow human beings is not part of the mix that certainly describes Anne an outwardly genial guy who as the film progresses becomes less so both to the consternation of Olga and ultimately to his own well-being he spends an inordinate amount of time videotaping the ongoing friction as it grows with both brothers which becomes at least seemingly a plot point when he suddenly disappears writer director soran shows us The Secret of that disappearance though Olga remains in the dark she continues to work the farm while continually hounding the local authorities and as happened in the real case several years pass represented by a full 45 minutes of the film's 2hour and 17-minute running time before the mystery of Antoine's fate is revealed the beasts is available to watch through any one of several streaming services as baz as the film is titled in gal ended up winning nine goas Spain's highest film award including best film Best Director best actor for May noet and best supporting actor for Zahara it also won Fran's Cesar Award for best foreign film meanwhile Olga's real life counterpart Margo P to whom the film is dedicated still lives in santala a reminder that no matter how serious a conflict might be wife has a way of forging on after a mesmerizing slow motion sequence of men struggling to pin down a wild horse Rodrigo soran's the Beast dives into the Bad Blood between its characters already on the verge of boiling over the first scene with characters and dialogue takes place in a bar serving as the social heart of the unnamed Galician Mountain Village where the story is set Men drink and play dominoes around a table but the mood is anything but relaxed due in part to the film's Natural lighting so thin it looks almost fragile one of the men Zan Anto leis zahura propped up at every turn by his younger brother Lorenzo Diaga anido dominates the conversation with venomous gossip we sense that this is a daily Ritual from the outset it's clear that the beasts is no cozy small town drama but something more akin to a rural Noir peopled with Petty embittered characters ruled by tradition and Instinct the bar scene establishes the film's penchant for Meandering dialogues that amass tension until without warning they erupt into conflict it's no accident that the game of choice is dominoes and not say chess for it alludes to how the film's plot is structured as a Cascade of chain reactions with its origins in a hazy past where every attempt by at resolving disputes only exacerbates them even the horse wrestling sequence turns out to be one such Domino but the bar scene also exhibits the film's most audacious feature its willingness to switch protagonists for much of the scene's duration xan suggests that he'll be the central focus of the Beast and then a character referred disparagingly as Frenchie Denny's Mayo at leaves in discomfort and the camera unexpectedly follows him out instead of remaining with the conversation though up to this point the camera has centered xan soran has subtly prepared Us by opening in media resz to identify with Antoine who as an immigrant finds himself in over his head in this village with its opaque rules and deep-seated grudges for the time being at least Anne becomes the film's protagonist and we learn how he and his wife alga Marina fiz immigrated to Galicia two years prior from France to begin a new life as organic farmers both are educated and well-traveled putting them at odds with villagers set in their ways and suspicious of Outsiders he's already made himself an enemy of xan by voting against the installation of wind turbines which would have come with a lump sum for the villagers but the beasts is even handed in its representations Antoine may be the central character but he's not entirely sympathetic especially in his dismissive treatment of Olga likewise xan may be vile but complexly so as he shows real love for his family his belief that Antoine is the tip of the spear whether intentionally or not of a coming gentrification that threatens to turn his home into a resort for wealthy tourists isn't without basis he nicknames Anne too the Conquistador connecting him ironically with France's invasion of Spain during the Napoleonic era as if Antoine were still culpable for historical transgressions enmity between the two rapidly festers as neither man is willing to back down from the conflict to the brink of absurdity and in a brief evocative sequence that finds Anne paying a visit to some wind turbines in the neighboring Community it's hard not to think of Don kot tilting at windmills unable to distinguish reality from his chalc delusions what throws xan over the edge more than anything is Anne's attempt to film him the Beast suggests that film's vaunted documentary power has its obscene inside as an ocular weapon for Antoine's vigilante surveillance is hardly objective and only ever escalates the domino likee effect of the Collision Course that they seem to be on this leads inexorably to the most dramatic pivot in the beasts when Olga and to a lesser extent her daughter Marie Marie colum become the protagonist the film then is as much about the beastliness of Zan and Anne's outmoded machismo as it is about the perseverance and fortitude of women in opposition to it all this action unfolds against a mountainous backdrop as Bleak as it is savagely beautiful even so the film can tend to rely overly on its rustic picturesque setting and the intricacies of its plot coming off more as a vehicle for soran and Isabelle Pena's screenwriting than visual ideas it has a distinctive look but one that remains static over 2 plus hours viewers may find themselves hankering for more more sequences like the opening which explicates the story's themes of stagnation and brutality without a single line of dialogue only the image of a horse's nostrils flaring in slow motion framed by the men's tattooed arm muscles you may remember french actor dennise mayet as The Farmer in the Tau opening scene of Quenton Tarantino's in glorious bastards performing opposite Kristoff Walt now after many International roles including one in our asers Bo is afraid mochet has won a Goya award one of the nine that director Rodrigo soran's blood boiling Thriller the beasts collected at the Spanish Oscars for playing a different kind of farmer in a desolate Galician Town mayo chitz anwi and his wife Olga Marina FIS grow vegetables to sell and rebuild houses which they then give away for free to encourage locals to stay and to entice new people to come but their efforts go against the longtime residents eagerness to sell their land for incoming wind turbines Antoine and Olga's Nextdoor neighbors xan Lewis Zahara a spiteful drunk who holds court at the area's only bar and his cognitively impaired brother Lorenzo Diego anido are their worst enemies hiding thinly veiled vitrio the siblings refer to Antoine as Frenchie and invoke Napoleon bonapart military campaign to conquer Gala as reason enough to dislike him Antoine's mere presence feels humiliating to them his refusal to sell preventing everyone else from cashing in makes him a Target acting in two languages May noet initially comes across as a beacon of Serenity his Burly build notwithstanding but that slowly morphs into constant exasperation when the siblings poison Ann's crops and taunt him at night the actor conveys the character's growing sense of anger behind a soft expression of masculinity that hopes to protect and Do no harm he's at the opposite end of the spectrum from xan and Lorenzo ready for a clash still the Frenchman tries to reason with them over drinks and carries around a small video camera to document his bullies Behavior Olga disapproves of her husband's tactics what's the point of living there if they must do so in fear early on soran reveals a frustrating Dynamic the authorities side with the brothers excusing their behavior as that of simple people who unlike the worldly Antoine and Olga Have Nothing Left to Lose the burden of Civility the police claim falls on the couple there's no satisfying resolution in sight for the class conundrum sagoian and his co-writer Isabelle Pena introduce is it fair for these foreigners well-meaning though they are to impose their will on several families desperate to escape their miserable circumstances for those accustomed to abject poverty even the crumbs being offered the predatory wind turbine Company Feel Like A Life altering Victory Antoine and Olga are guilty of gentrifying the place for their loftier dreams of sustainability yet that still doesn't justify the Primal instincts that drive xan and Lorenzo as with all great moral dilemmas sagoian makes it impossible to entirely side with either party without considering that each of them has been victimized by large social ills and that's the visceral potency of the beasts which suggests that in order to take another person's life you have to see them as less than human or less than yourself for its second half in the aftermath of a Twist that shouldn't be spoiled the film takes on an unexpected depth and even a semblance of closure though it shouldn't be a surprise that no one fully gets what they want true horror lies not in the actual presentation of the said horror but in the certainty of its imminent arrival in the feelings of expectation the waight and the dread persistent Insidious mentally torturous Spanish director Rodrigo sagoian knows exactly how to portray this most effectively on screen since his Slow Burn drama Thriller the beasts as baz is one highly palpable mesmerizingly and snaring exploration of psychological persecution and bullying grounded in Stark realism when French couple Anne and Olga Denny made noet and Marina foes arrived to a rural community in gisha Spain they wanted only the best for the area and its people quietly starting their Farm restoring old houses around them and connecting with a local market however not everyone was happy to see them and when the new wind energy project suddenly needs more signatories two local Brothers Zan Lewis zahar and Lorenzo Diego anido think that a terror campaign against the French expats is the only solution there is something about French produced films about eccentric Outsiders who come to rural communities and disrupt lives their Gene de florette 1986 chocolot 2000 which simply intrigued the core of the drama is a person pinned against his new environment and neighbors the beasts allegedly inspired by a real story of 2010c documentary Santa 2016 also purports to tap into just this wealth of opportunities for drama however the end product here is not just some run of the mill domestic drama but one Exquisite savagery after such films as the candidate 2018 and mother 2019 in the beasts director soran is again in a familiar territory of intricate drama at the heart of which are complex interpersonal relationships that work as catalysts for emergencies to come Antoine and Olga seem to have settled in rural Galicia and work as farmers and home restorers and they also have friends two friends in fact the only friends another local farmer and his wife the time then comes when Antoine and Olga are hesitant to sign a document handled recently to local residents for the permission to convert most of the local land to a renewable energy project that would give some money to the residents but would also Rob them of their land thus immediately this tale feels very modern the opposition to a renewable energy development and as old as time of friction between old and new neighbors at the same time local manzan is angry about Anne's stubbornness not to do what businesses in the area of demand but his hatred for his neighbor seems to have deeper Roots as the attacks on Antoine and Olga grow in a crescendo fashion from Cruel jokes targeting Anne's nationality to poisoning their water supply it is when the police turn a blind eye on the happenings that Anin starts to believe that recording The Bullying is the only weapon he has where this film turns truly harrowing is when we realize the extent of xan and Lorenzo's psychological abuse campaign against Antoine and Olga a seemingly straightforward unassuming plot of a neighbor's conflict takes on proportions worthy of a tactic in a historical battle as the camera circles Anne and follows his movements around the area from a local pub to a shop from his dog walk to his car trip the danger is constantly there in the very air once Antoine's car breaks down and xan is seemingly willing to help will he The Genius of the film is that we do not know what kind of a blow Antoine would receive or when it is just the certainty of the trouble to come that is clear as the tensions in the story Mount so the film gets more nuanced the best scenes are to be found in the film's middle and end where the dialogues between Antoine and xan and between Olga and her daughter Marie Marie column display the film's range of intricacies and insights into the human nature there are no special effects or other tricks here to distract the viewer just simple magic flowing from immersive direct film making the dialogues are raw hidden emotions finally coming to the surface human interactions filmed to Perfection the conflict is self-interest greed Envy frustration and misunderstanding that can no longer lay dormant and fear it is primal and Nate the music sets the tone the score by Oliver arson is hypnotizing minimalism full of tribal beats that underscores either the moments of intimacy between Antoine and Olga or the pivotal confrontations between the couple and their neighbors and there is even a visual reference to the Silence of the Lambs 1991 soran also seems that kind of a director who can elicit the most from his cast as the duo of expats who hope to make it as farmers in their new loal both Denny's mayet and Marina Foy give performances of much nuance and conviction the former almost in the role of one gentle giant who tries to be friendly to everyone but still has to be on guard seeing all the xenophobia directed at him from all Corners our intense sympathy for antwine comes partly through May not's ability as an actor to be so reserved and yet say so much through the unspoken displays of humanity and hope as the role of a Victor is forced upon him and he finds himself with torn feelings and contradictions a man should be able to defend himself and his family if needed but Antoine is already at the disadvantage both culturally and linguistically not to mention being perceived in Outsider and feeling so isolated in his community the beasts shows that enmity can be subtle and Insidious but no less frightening for that and the film's distinction resides in its painstaking exploration of a very human drama a very Vivid drama a drama handled so sensitively and yet with such Vigor the Beast is first and foremost a film of palpable tensions and unwavering conviction Rell Hernandez Lan of habacon Solas rated the beasts with 85 points very good highlighting detention throughout its first hour as well as the performances by ment faes and Zahara as the film standout 34 Eric Ortiz Gara of screenanarchy assessed that the film stands out for its accomplished sequences of mundane tension in cresendo and for the complex background of the conflict Marta Med of L confidential rated the film four out of five stars assessing it to have its best ally in its formal cleanliness in its conciseness in August 2022 the members of The Academy of cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain selected the beasts in their short list of three pre-elections for their submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International feature film alongside alaras and lullabi on its surface the beasts an atmospheric Spanish True Crime Thriller seems like oblique Parable a pair of Outsiders inspired by real life Dutch Eco Farmers Margot and Martin verond find themselves trapped in a heated dispute with their provincial Galan neighbors the agreed Farm Zam leis Zahara and his skittish brother Lauren Diego anido resent the non-native couple Olga and Antoine Marina fiz and Denny mayit for preventing the sale of their land to a wind turbine company so Olga pleads with Antoine to avoid or at least stop covertly filming an increasingly combative xan that's easier said than done for Anne given both Zan and Lorenzo's aggressive and antagonistic Behavior the resulting conflict also seems fairly straightforward while xan resents Anne Beyond Reason Anne refuses to abandon his land thankfully co- writer/director Rodrigo soran's focus on Antoine and xan's emotionally charged stalemate keeps the beasts from devolving into yet another quazi Artful and pseudo moral genre movie that pits intolerant bumpkins against ignorant City Slickers mood Trump's Morality In the beasts partly because Sor goyan in collaboration with Director of Photography alandro deblo art director Jose torado and sound designer Fabiola oroo among others focuses on the stale air and the Dead Leaves that cling to the almost deceased castian Village of qula debarges about a 35-minute drive from the nearest inhabited City a half stifling and half enchanting air of stagnation only deepens the character's petulant self-serving dialogue not to mention their predictably fruitless and perpetually escalating Tit for Tat fighting many filmmakers are praised for making their location shot settings the real stars of their movies the beasts wouldn't be half as compelling if its creators didn't draw so much out of their movies desolate and beautiful Ghost Town Saroyan was smart to emphasize both in his movie and an interview in the movie's press notes that the beasts only uses real events as a starting point because while the Grievances that Define both antoin and xan may be topical neither character is much more compelling rather the beasts is arresting because of its Creator's stylized vision of reality some long takes present time in a naturalistic way and some indoor scenes use natural looking light to deepen our appreciation of what qula dear's looks and sounds like these fairly standard filmmaking techniques also redirect our attention to the oppressive Stillness that surrounds Antoine and xan soran's characters repeatedly bump into each other and just as often butt heads despite tentative and often sincere looking offers to hear each other out by focusing on the impenetrable glooms surrounding antoin xan and their respective Partners soran makes the beasts more about the tragic inevitability of his protagonists dispute than whatever they say they're fighting for the beasts also deserves praise for its Ensemble casts uniformly strong performances especially since neither Zahara nor anido have had much experience as professional movie actors soran and a Pablo's camera moves with purpose leaving viewers with the impression that we're either trailing after Anne and xan or looking up with them as they struggle to anticipate whatever's about to happen they retrace their steps slowly sometimes even literally uphill or balance and shift on their back feet waiting for something there sure is coming but still can't f fully prepare for that's a nightmarish head space the kind that great horror movies thrive on the beasts is ultimately a parable about neighbors who keep looking at each other with anger and sadness for an impossible Miracle they sort of get one but it provides no relief soran who co-wrote the beasts with Isabelle Pena breaks his story into two uneven halves the second of which shifts the plots Focus away from Anne and onto Olga and Marie Marie colum their frustrated daughter a seemingly inevitable plot twist necessitates this narrative break but even then the movie is more about the sheer intensity of its character's emotional deadlock nobody cares about the truth Marie says and she's right of course Olga is also right when she tells Marie you don't understand because Marie has not lived in Quin Dees for as long as she has so she hasn't taken in as much dead comforting air as her mother sorag goyan and Pena May ultimately lead us alongside their characters to a Pious anticlimactic finale but it's almost hard to care given how real Antoine and xan's world seems the toxic air surrounding these two characters does not clear by the movie's end it accretes and suffocates everyone who breathes it antoin and xan's dispute is therefore less about turf or hurt feelings than how the world looks when you're waiting for the worst to happen it does and it's as obvious and upsetting as it needs to be the beasts may not be realistic but it is genuinely Eerie 50-some French couple Anne and his wife Olga moved to gisha looking for a fresh start instead they find only hostility and hardship in Rodrigo sagoian the beasts a deeply uncomfortable portrait of everyday evil that's all the more terrifying for being true not the two main characters who are fictional but the conflict that comes to Define their new life in that wild corner of Northwest Spain Anan played by dennise mayet a sturdy bear-like man with a James gandalin escreen presence buys a modest plot on a primal's clo fixing up the crumbling Stone Cottage into something cozy enough to call home he and Olga Marina fies who is build first but takes her time to emerge as the film's main character our f prepared to face the challenges of raising crops on such unforgiving soil what they're not prepared for is the open resentment of their xenophobic neighbors 52-year-old xan Lewis zahura and his brother Lauren Diego anido who was kicked in the head by a horse at some point and has the jagged Scar and Blank Stare to show for it these two have lived in the same spot all their lives and don't take kindly to Outsiders coming in and changing things or not changing them as the case may be since Antoine casts a deciding vote that prevents wind turbines from being installed blocking the poor brothers from an easy Payday the movie opens with slow motion footage of a local tradition called aradas pastas in which rugged men grapple with wild horses wrestling them long enough to trim their Ms before turning the animals loose again it's an evocative ritual representing the brute struggle between species a metaphor that informs all that follows soran is constantly reminding audiences of the relationship between man and animal from Antoine's Forest walks with his trusty alss to the shotgun blasts fired by offscreen hunters there can be no question whom he considers to be the real threat in the beasts an unconventional yet idea-driven crime film that like Dominic muls the KN of the 12 so thoroughly avoids sensationalizing the violence at its Center that it all but flew beneath the radar at the 2022 cans Film Festival Knight went on to win the Cesar while beasts racked up nine goas in its native Spain suggesting that both ought to have been in competition maybe beasts was too much like Romanian director Christian MJ RMS which also deconstructs the tensions among European communities threatened by globalization and change rmn made all of $50,000 in US theaters whereas Slow Burn beasts is enough of a thriller that it could develop a cult following it helps that soran has found the year's best villain in longtime collaborator Zahara who transforms himself into a hostile creature glowering at Antoine and taunting him with insults xan calls his neighbor Fran translated here as Frenchie mocking the outsider's accent over a nerve racking game of dominoes and every subsequent time their paths cross zahur is menacing body language matched by an anxious string score and arms length camera work as if even DP alandro dep Pablo is wary of getting too close establishes a sense of dread so acute and pervasive it can be hard for audiences to breathe at times in bed at night Olga gazes over her husband's shoulder and sees two men lurking outside their window tending their small but sturdy patch of tomatoes they find signs of lead poisoning and Trace the cause to a pair of car batteries thrown into their well only one person could have been responsible for sabotaging their entire crop the beasts reflects a form of violence that isn't at all rare in the real world however seldom it may be depicted in the movies when your new neighbors turn out to be a nightmare it's strange that filmmakers don't dramatize this phenomenon more often considering how often it's happened to people I know there was the guy who bought a multi-million doll man ition only to have the Mobsters next door sabotage the water line sending the clear message that they intended him to sell the house to them or the one whose neighbors operated a noisy Body Shop out of their garage when he reported them to the city they retaliated by cutting his brakes luckily he discovered the problem before the car crashed there's almost nothing to be done in such situations but move the cops in both cases admitted as much here Antoine goes to the local police and they hardly take him seriously he buys a video camera and starts to record his increasingly aggressive interactions with the neighbors who may not be educated but aren't stupid either olre recognizes the growing risk and begs her husband to diffuse the situation somehow instead it gets worse the film's big scene is upsetting and Unforgettable one of those movie moments you can't unsee and which seems destined to to haunt you for years to come as the thing we've been dreading since the beginning comes to pass it arrives earlier than we might expect a tragic echo of the opening footage of the Raa but the film doesn't end there shifting its focus from Antoine to Olga who's obliged to reckon with her husband's actions soran includes an astonishing scene with the couple's daughter Marie Marie colum who pleads with her mother to leave this place which soroy en Likens to the wild west a adopting certain codes of the genre in his treatment of a dangerous and still Untamed Frontier the actor Marina foyes who plays Olga began her career making frivolous comedies but she's Fierce and uncompromising here while much of the film plays out in subtext the script which sorag goyan co-wrote with Isabelle Pena gives both sides room to express their anxieties ultimately rewarding the character who finds the human solution to a seemingly unresolvable conflict across a measured but never sluggish 137 minute runtime soran and co-writer Isabelle penar escalating tensions and stages as slow but inexurable as changes of weather as an impass presence itself the local men folk first make their displeasure known through passive aggressive exchanges with antoin at the Village bar less passively they then resort to poisoning the couple's water supply it's not the most drastic measure they'll take assuming the Foreigner perspective the Beast cultivates a tightening sense of Terror as it Dawn on Antoine and Olga that they have no allies in this battle even as notionally civil relations break down however the film doesn't quite make villains of their antagonists there's a palpable warn to the Bone hunger to the brothers Relentless campaign that remains glumly sympathetic even when it lurches far beyond the bounds of reasonability zahar gnarled Wy performance smartly keeps in play the question of whether xan is driven to deranged measures by need or whether his neighbors resistance to his demands nearly aggravates a latent psychotic streak for much of its duration even in its most deliberate stretches the beasts is kept taught by the gruff Alpha staring contest between him and Mayo's bearish man of admittedly self-serving principle but it only takes one to Blink for the flinty loyal perennially underestimated ated Olga played by F's with a grave implacable certainty in all she does to emerge as a secret weapon and for the film hither to an apparent departure from soran's female driven 2019 melodrama mother in its preponderance of sweaty scowling testosterone to reveal its Steely feminist spine Antoine and Olga played by Denise mayet and Marino foes feel at home in the rural galish village where they live and farm some of their neighbors have however see things differently they view Antoine and Olga as Outsiders an educated French couple who do not deserve to be here two brothers xan and Lorenzo Lewis Zahara and Diego anido especially resent Antoine and Olga for voting against the construction of a wind turbine that would give xan and Lorenzo money such antagonism builds increasingly throughout this riveting rural Thriller by Spanish director Rodrigo soroy the beasts is soroy can's debut he previously received an Oscar nomination for his short film matter and the San Sebastian jury prize for May God save us in 2016 the beasts has already received a claim at cans and was awarded the audience Award for best European film at San Sebastian boasting powerful performances and some impressive long takes the beasts continues to cement soran's place as one of the preeminent contemporary Spanish directors from the opening scene which features slow motion footage of farm hands tackling a wild horse at Galicia rapadas Bastas Fiesta there is an intensity and brutality to the beasts however this echo of violence is hidden just below the surface every time Antoine goes for a drink at the local bar there is a constant Aura of aggression between him and the two brothers Zan and Lorenzo like a flood about to burst xan antagonizes Antoine at every opportunity slowly but surely escalating the conflict to a point of no return amidst the gorgeous Lush landscape of gisha sagoian injects a pulsing unnerving score that reflects the building hostility between the two households the surrounding Farmland may be Antoine and Olga's Joy but the isolation is also a constant threat the beasts features powerful performances from all the major players and soran allows these performances to come alive through his repeated use of long takes there are multiple scenes that last for over 10 minutes without cuts they never feel showy or overdone but instead let the momentum build naturally highlighting the incredible acting and the tense dialogue with the backdrop of rural gisha the beasts is definitively Spanish but it touches on familiar themes the underlying tension between outside and local educated and uneducated urban and rural Ral is the core of all great rural Thrillers hearkening back to the films of Borman and pekena however soran goes beyond this layering on the tension and rooting it in our contemporary Moment In addition to the urban versus rural tension there are hints of nationalism and xenophobia local Galician Farmers versus the French newcomers living in Spain as well as deep issues of class for the farmers xan and Lorenzo who have been working the land for decades the development of a wind turbine represents a way out of a life of misery and hardship for Antoine and Olga the wealthy foreigners who have been playing at farming for 2 years as xan puts it the unspoiled land is worth far more than the money this theme of gentrification specifically the selling of traditional land for environmental projects feels profoundly relevant in rural communities across Spain as well as the Netherlands and other countries across the globe traditional farming methods are running up against Economic Development and new Environmental Policy this is also a major theme in alcaraz another 2022 Spanish film currently running the festival circuit however in the beasts thematic elements ultimately Fade to the background in favor of the film's true purpose to deliver a tense Boiling Pot of a movie with powerful performances taught dialogue and a surprising narrative shift in the third act the beasts is a remarkable film and one of the most gripping rural Thrillers in recent memory The Ten Commandments teach us to Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself including fellow humans animals and all life however in Rodrigo soro's the beasts as Bas that commandment goes out the window the four walls we live within are meant to be our Sanctuary protecting us from the Wilderness of the outside world however we cannot control those who become our neighbors life can be great and we may get on really well with our neighbors but there are also times when peace can evaporate into a living hell all thanks to something big or even trivial spare a thought or two for Anne and Olga played by Dennis mayet and Marina Faris who have set up home in Northwest Spain they live in a village in the Galicia region of the country where they grow their own vegetables and sell them in the local Village Market additionally they repair and refurbish abandoned Cottages in their local area on paper their life looks quiet and even idilic anine and Olga have many friends in the local area but they also have many who despise them because they are French we first meet Anne who sits quietly in the bar in his village while the local men joke about the French invasion of Spain during the Napoleonic War in 1808 one man in particular is leading the resentment and hatred towards antoin xan played by Lewis zahur he calls him Frenchy and while to some that might seem like friendly banter it suggests that something troubling is brewing we soon learn that the epicenter of the resentment is when Norwegian developers approach the villagers to build a wind farm in the area promising Financial rewards to everyone who agrees to the development Antoine and Olga are the only two who reject the proposal which angers xan and his younger brother Lorenzo played by Diego anido the banter and jokes the brothers play on their French neighbors gradually escalate and tensions and tempers rise to a point of no return suggesting that something unexpected could happen the beasts is a slow burning psychological drama Thriller that utilizes mind gains resulting in pure hatred xenophobia societal discrimination and retribution and