‘The Beasts’ review: A thoughtful pastoral thriller with palpable tension
The Beasts, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s new thriller, is loosely informed by real events that occurred in Petin, a small hamlet in Ourense, in the Galicia region of Spain, between 2010 and 2014. Sorogoyen co-wrote the screenplay with frequent collaborator Isabel Pena and cast Denis Menochet, Marina Fois, Luis Zahera and Diego Anido.
The plot tells of a middle-aged French couple, Antoine and Olga, who have moved to a small Galician village to grow and sell organic vegetables, repurpose abandoned buildings and generally live a happy, wholesome life. However, their ‘escape to the country’ lifestyle arouses the anger of the locals, who are keen to escape what they consider to be a “shit” life.
To make matters worse, we learn that Antoine rejected a proposal from an international development company that wanted to build a wind farm across the village, offering each of the farmers who live there a generous cash sum to clear off. Antoine’s main rivals are the fearsome Xan and his daft brother Loren. Xan makes it clear that Antoine’s insistence on living out his life in a country that is not his own continues to make Xan and his families miserable, and he longs to settle up and move somewhere he might find a wife.
It goes without saying, there are a few issues that are causing a rift between the village’s foreign settlers and its locals. Firstly, there are the troubled and historically strained Franco-Spanish relations which Xan is more than happy to bring up down the local drinking hole. Secondly, there is the very fact that Xan feels that he is more entitled to a say on whether the wind farm should be built as he has lived in the village his entire life. The rift leads to Xan and Loren severely messing with Antoine’s farm (and his head), leading to intense and rightful paranoia.
One of the most exciting and alluring things about The Beasts is Denis Menochet’s excellent performance (he’s arguably best known for his amazing performance at the beginning of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds) and his sheer physical stature. We might think that Antoine’s undoubted strength would lead him to be able to intimidate Xan and Loren into leaving him alone. Still, the fact that it does not, highlights the fact that Antoine is a soft academic at heart and equally that the country folk of Galicia fear little and are rather barbarous.
The Beasts is beautifully shot, whether showing the intoxicating nature of the Spanish countryside or ramping up the tension in scenes where Xan and Antoine attempt to settle their differences. As mentioned, Menochet’s performance is one of true admiration, but the same ought to be said of Luis Zahera, who plays Xan with a frightening and almost unbridled sense of anger. Perhaps The Beasts had been overlooked when the Academy considered who was deserving of a ‘Best Actor’ award earlier this year.
However, a minor criticism of the film is that Xan and Loren’s depiction can occasionally border on the caricature-like, even if they are both terrifying in the fact that we’re persistently unsure of their true motives, seeing as Xan is willing to play dominoes with Antoine and discuss at length with him the reasons for his not signing the windfarm deal. The latter of which is one of the film’s best scenes.
Another minor fault of The Beasts is that its surprising volta seems to suck the tension and energy out of proceedings replacing it momentarily with something of a French family drama, even if pressure is restored to its height towards the film’s conclusion. Still, Sorogoyen’s film is a fascinating look at the relationship between the ‘escape to the country’ types and those who lived in the countryside in the first place.
