The Beasts opens with an artfully shot slow-motion sequence of two young men wrestling a wild horse to the ground by its neck. Such a scene sets the tone for Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s film, establishing the beastly cruelty of man and also foreshadowing key aspects of the story to come. Moreover, it makes clear the film’s intention to juxtapose natural majesty with human depravity, even if this slow-burn of a dramatic thriller takes its time getting there.
Set in a remote village in the Spanish countryside, The Beasts presents appealingly simple farm life amid striking vistas, and it’s clear to see why the French expatriate couple of Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs) are so enamored with their new home. They run an organic vegetable farm and Antoine aspires to restore various uninhabitable homesteads he’s purchased in order to rent them out. He’s living his dream, almost literally, considering that he at one point confesses that he moved to the village because he unexpectedly awoke there one morning after a wild night of debauchery years earlier and vowed to one day live there.
Problem is that his neighbors, brothers Xan (Luis Zahera) and Lorenzo (Diego Anido), who have had no choice but to live in the town their entire lives, despise him and do not in the slightest hide that fact. Antoine made no friends when he voted against allowing a corporation to erect wind turbines near the village, feeling the money offered to the townsfolk was not worth the eyesore. With this decision, he made enemies with his neighbors. Whether it’s Xan menacing Antoine and calling him “Frenchy” in the local pub or Lorenzo harassing him when Antoine’s vehicle breaks down, the brothers wear their contempt for him on their sleeves, and what starts as seemingly benign dislike gradually turns into something far more sinister, providing the film with its greatest source of tension.
On the surface, it would appear the brothers’ hatred of Antoine stems from simple xenophobia. Prejudice against otherness does extend to the local police, whom Antoine seeks help from when the brothers begin trespassing and vandalizing his property. The local law enforcement makes all manner of excuses for the brothers, including claiming Antoine, being educated, is taking advantage of the “dimwitted” Lorenzo, who we learn incurred a brain injury from a childhood accident with a horse, recalling the film’s opening scene. They offer little more assistance than likely empty promises to “have a talk” with the brothers and they suggest this is merely a neighborly dispute that could be solved over a drink.
When Antoine attempts to do so, Xan reveals the real reason he resents the Frenchman in one of the film’s most compelling scenes. He doesn’t so much care that the man is a foreigner, but does consider him an interloper in the decision-making process for the town. Antoine is educated, well-travelled and is simply “playing farmer” in Xan’s eyes, and he is standing in the way of what Xan sees as his only way out of the home he’s both protective of and feels imprisoned by. With this scene, Sorogoyen and Isabel Peña’s script helps the viewer understand the film’s villain. There’s no doubt that Antoine and Olga have enjoyed greater privilege, and Xan’s not wrong that Antoine an obstacle to his perceived birthright. He’s not wrong about Antoine’s dreams of agritourism while Xan and Lorenzo scrap and claw just to get by, with no hope of transcending their station in life.
The Beasts masterfully contrasts majestic scenery and scenes highlighting Antoine and Olga’s love with the menace and depravity unique to humans. By the third act, the focus shifts to how women are affected by the evil that men do. We see the impact the fallout of the feud has on Olga and their visiting adult daughter Marie (Marie Colomb) and even the brothers’ mother (Luisa Merelas). The film stirs up social and interpersonal themes with no easy answers, and it puts its protagonists in positions where the right decision doesn’t always align with their best interests. More than anything, Sorogoyen’s film reminds us how quickly an idyllic dream can turn into a nightmare.
The post The Beasts appeared first on Spectrum Culture.