The story that Rodrigo Sorogoyen decides to tell in his great success ‘As bestas’ is one as old as humanity itself. The fight for the territory, in who can really speak of his “land”, in how the conflict is exacerbated by external forces. It is what turns rural Spain, sometimes, into a whole horror story.
The boundaries, the eternal conflict
A story that he captures with special intensity in the first half of the film, although part of what makes it intensely real is precisely that the story is real. I know inspired by real eventsalso captured on camera by the people who suffered it as well as by a couple of documentarians who articulated everything in the true crime ‘santoalla‘.
The documentary film, available to watch on Amazon Prime Video, premiered in 2016 with the direction of Andrew Becker Y daniel mehrer, who found themselves fascinated by the story of the Dutch couple residing in the Galician village that gives its name to the piece. Martin Verfondern and Margo Pool left Amsterdam with the hope of living off the virtues of the land of the northwest of the peninsula, although Living with the neighbors will seriously hinder your sleep.
Poorly concealed tensions, confusing bureaucracy, frustrating jurisprudence, threats hidden under the facade. It all contributes to the tragic events that we know about and are shocking to watch. Becker and Mehrer use a good combination of archival material, both from the court proceedings and recorded by Martin himself, as well as interviews where what is said has infinity of layers that try to unravel.
They do not deprive themselves, of course, of resorting to functional tricks present in most modern true crimes, such as the use of music that is especially stressful and annoying when being evident in his emotionally manipulative intentions. Trends that still don’t need too much because the story is already shocking, and it manages to make that the predominant emotion while it takes us through the dark lands of emptied Spain.
Not everything it shows can be extrapolated to all of rural Spain, and ‘Santoalla’ also tells of the particularities that make this a special case. However, the fight for the borders brings to the fore human defects that can be found here and anywhere else, and this documentary shows like few others the terrible consequences of a little discussed but devastating conflict.