The French couple Antoine and Olga are making their dream come true, now thatdaughter Maria has left home: to live as an organic farmer in a mountainvillage in the Spanish region of Galicia, where only the elderly and theunderprivileged were left behind. The idealistic bully Antoine dreams ofrevitalizing the entire village, restoring abandoned slums on his own. Thecouple is learning Spanish, making friends – but not everyone is happy abouttheir arrival. The neighbors, brothers Xan and Loren, are hostile andresentful.
This is already apparent in the blistering first scene, where the wiry Xan inthe village pub sets off harassing anti-French tirades against lobbes Antoine.It turns out that it is not just xenophobia of those left behind: Antoineresists the arrival of the windmills from which the brothers hope to earnmoney to buy a taxi in the valley. They want to get out of the poverty thatAntoine finds so picturesque.
This modern social conflict – the Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen wasinspired by a true story – provides fuel for a dark thriller that smolders andheats to its fatal discharge. This is followed by a long epilogue, aboutmourning, revenge and justice. Stylistically, Sorogoyen was inspired bywesterns: this is about stubborn men in a raw nature who get stuck in aninsoluble, apparently principled conflict. The brothers are the villains, theykeep taking new steps on the escalation ladder. They piss all over thecouple’s chairs. Beat a mirror off the car. Put old batteries in the well sothat Antoine has to continue his tomato harvest.
Antoine reacts like a modern, reasonable citizen. He secretly films thebrothers to build a file against them, because the local police pick up andkeep wet. But things only escalate and after a late night encounter Olgaknows: had Antoine been there alone, the brothers would have killed him. Is itworth it, she wonders.
late anyway Las Bestias Don’t reduce yourself to a template thriller aboutcivilized people besieged by inbred heads. Somewhere on two-thirds the scalesfall from your eyes when Antoine forces the two brothers into a conversationin the village pub. You see the door open for a moment at his assailants –until Antoine slams it shut again. His resentment is understandable after allthat has happened, but stands in the way of compromise.
And that’s the point of Las Bestias : French may clash with Spanish here,city with village, cosmopolitan with hillbilly, but ultimately this is allabout testosterone, war logic. Antoine can’t listen either, add water to thewine, let go of his saintly right. Nobody wants to know about deviating.
Las Bestias can be taken as a critique of the principled, stand yourground logic that westerns instill in us. There is always a solution, Olgatells Antoine. But it’s all or nothing for him too, so everything moves infatalistic slow motion towards violence. And then follows a grim epilogue ofmourning and retribution where the women left behind get to foot the bill. As