As bestas establishes a particularly fleshly eeriness from the incipit. In a long, slow-motion sequence a couple of men tame a herd of wild horses. It’s almost a dance, masculine and muscular, that forebodes the sordid events to come. Here is how we deal with things around here, it seems to express—physically. Cut to a wonderful dialogue scene in the local bar, to which the Galician cadence confers the elegance of a recitative despite its uneasy tone. In just a few minutes, a gloomy mood is set, where at every beat something darker is perceived beneath the surface. Jokes become unsettling as friendly conversations seem more and more to disguise threats. Even the subtle whispers of nature make us wary of an unspoken yet palpable danger.
Funny coincidence that the Galician for the beasts should sound so close to asbestos, suggesting perhaps the best adjective to describe the atmosphere—toxic. Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s rural tragedy kept me on the edge in the same way Matteo Garrone’s Dogman did, and left me equally shaken. But whereas the latter had a mostly psychological focus, As bestas delves into themes as current as xenophobia and gentrification reminding us that the problems, up there among the forgotten, are not as straightforward as they might seem—thus unveiling a much deeper reflection on our time.