The triumph of ‘As Bestas’ has been unappealable in the last Goya awards, and it has not been a major success because it also competed technically with the fabulous setting exercise of ‘Modelo 77’. A result with a certain bittersweet flavor, due to the fact that a film prevails so much in such a good and diverse year for Spanish cinema, but without a doubt a well-deserved recognition for Rodrigo Sorogoyen, one of the fittest filmmakers In our country.
He did it with a film that evolves his way of making thrillers, a very popular genre in the national industry, although not always yielding the most exciting results. Sorogoyen is one of those that has offered the most impressive films of the genre, highlighting his other great film that swept the Goyas and who recognized him as one of the directors of the moment: ‘The kingdom’.
It’s all paid
Although he was left without the jackpot for best film (which ‘Campeones’ won), his direction, his script with Isabel Peña, his actors Antonio de la Torre and Luis Zahera and the editing of Alberto del Campo they had their fair recognition. And it wouldn’t have been unreasonable if both the photography and the music (impressive electronic shot of Olivier Arson) would also have been awarded.
The film delves into the most abject parts of political corruption in our country, following a regional vice-secretary played by De La Torre who is going to be accused of the corruption plot in which he has been involved along with other members of the party. Thus begins a nervous odyssey to try to avoid jail or, at least, not be the only one who messes with the whole thing.
Sorogoyen and Peña take care to use real names that could compromise the project, but it is not difficult to see how in this fictitious party they intermingling the two main political parties in Spain and the different regional scandals. The allusions, yes, play a bit against you if your mind is dedicated to unraveling which public personality (or personalities) is being referenced with a certain character (it happens to me, my mind goes like this).
‘The Kingdom’: Meteoric Descent
Bringing together all the problems of the different parties in the same entity is a very conscious decision, trying to investigate corruption at a social level that is more explicit in an apparently trivial scene in a beach bar. Is a moral chiaroscuro with which the film takes risksalthough it is still a cannon shot against the interested jobs and those accomplices in leaving these criminals unscathed.
It turns out to be a successful film, above all because of Sorogoyen’s incredible pulse when it comes to directing, handling the escalation of tension well and pointing out the volatile and vengeful character of this damnable protagonist. His way of using the codes of the thriller and twisting them to explore this disturbed and determined psyche shows how Rodrigo drinks a lot from the essence of Michael Mann (it’s also very noticeable in his ‘Riot Gear’ series), and when you have a reference like that it’s hard not to do a film as powerful as it is distinguishable from the rest.
In Espinof | The best Spanish films of 2022