Marshland - directed by Alberto Rodriguez
Starring: Javier Gutierrez, Raul Arevalo, Salva Reina, Ana Tomeno, Jesus Ortiz, Maria Varod, Jesus Castro
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rated: R16 - Corpses, brief nudity and infrequent but bloody violence
Spanish Serial Killer Movie
That is how you sell a movie.
At least it worked on me.
Given the chance to see an advanced screening of "Marshland" those three words did the trick.
In truth the sub genre is in a bit of a lull and who better to give it a kick in the pants than a foreign director?
(with apologies to Spaniards reading this who of course are not in context 'foreign')
It has been a fair few years since the likes of "Silence of the Lambs" and Se7en" gave the serial killer movie an injection of quality and a wider acceptance.
Lately TV has taken up the slack with the truly excellent "Hannibal" and "True Detective" which I am told is also great.
But for now we are in Spain, it is 1980 and two young women have gone missing....
The era that "Marshland" is set is almost immediately apparent as the film starts.
I say almost immediately because we are treated first to some stunning aerial shots of the geographical region of the films title.
Looking like some sort of psychedelic brainscan what we are watching is not immediately clear until birds and boats and people start coming into view.
It is beautiful stuff and reminded me of similar moments in Fernando Meirelles brilliant "The Constant Gardener".
In fact some of the tone of that film is present here too as we meet a pair of Madrid police detectives arriving in the Guadalquivir Marshes.
Young women have been turning up dead here for some years and now two sisters have gone missing.
The two cops are very different in both appearance and method.
The older man - Juan- doesn't sleep much- possibly not at all.
He drinks and his physical interrogation methods are not restrained by the gender or ages of his subjects.
Pedro on the other hand is by the book- mostly.
He has a wife in Madrid who is about to give birth to his child.
The 1980 timeframe gets around what has become the bane of genre writers over the last twenty years- the cellphone.
Nothing ruins tension like the ability of a character to instantly get in touch with help or reveal important details before pacing deems them appropriate.
In Marshland there are no cellphones, computers or of course Googling.
It makes for a tenser affair.
It is the inclusion - very subtly- of a political undercurrent that aids this tension even further.
This is a country in the midst of social and economic upheaval.
Jobs are hard to come by and we see graffiti mentioning Franco - the controversial leader of Spain from 1936 until 1975.
Several people talk of their desperation to leave the town.
We are told that the two missing teenaged girls were too.
When their bodies are found they have missing toes and fingers and violent rape is evident.
Chief suspect is the handsome ex boyfriend of one of the girls but no one will talk freely.
What separates "Marshland" from films I might have expected it to resemble going in is a reluctance to glorify anything.
As stunning as the cinematography is- specially at night- there is no flash to the movie.
There is shooting and even a car chase but this is all grounded in the harsh reality of real life.
These are working cops- not superheroes.
I know nothing of the lead actors but they are perfect in the roles.
Both look like they could themselves be killers - there is something a little off with both.
And so it is with the film on the whole.
Much is left up to the imagination of the viewer.
What is happening at the hunting lodge?
Who is the man in the hat?
There are many questions and all lead one to dark places of the imagination.
More girls are being targeted as the movie goes on but none will talk.
There is the suggestion of sexual violence and possibly worse.
"Marshland" is the sort of film that is enjoyable to watch but will be I suspect be considerably more effective on second viewing.
There is a lot going on and I know that I missed a lot of what was lurking, barely suggested underneath.
One character in particular has a history that once known will make subsequent viewings quite a bit more fascinating.
Even as the movie ended I was left wondering if some of what I had been told was the truth.
Possibilities ran through my mind that I am keen to explore with a second look.
It can't be easy to pull off this sort of thing - a movie that has a clear series of events that nonetheless might be entirely misleading.
Its nothing overt - there is no John Doe to reveal the entire plan to us as the film ends.
It is this subtlety that makes it work as well as it does.
This is a slow burn of a film - a moody concoction that somehow manages to recall "The Wages of Fear", "A Touch of Evil" and "Blue Velvet".
Very, very good.
RATING: 74 / 100
CONCLUSION: Moody, intense and intriguing. This is one of those films that will stay with you long after you have left the cinema.
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rated: R16 - Corpses, brief nudity and infrequent but bloody violence
Spanish Serial Killer Movie
That is how you sell a movie.
At least it worked on me.
Given the chance to see an advanced screening of "Marshland" those three words did the trick.
In truth the sub genre is in a bit of a lull and who better to give it a kick in the pants than a foreign director?
(with apologies to Spaniards reading this who of course are not in context 'foreign')
It has been a fair few years since the likes of "Silence of the Lambs" and Se7en" gave the serial killer movie an injection of quality and a wider acceptance.
Lately TV has taken up the slack with the truly excellent "Hannibal" and "True Detective" which I am told is also great.
But for now we are in Spain, it is 1980 and two young women have gone missing....
The era that "Marshland" is set is almost immediately apparent as the film starts.
I say almost immediately because we are treated first to some stunning aerial shots of the geographical region of the films title.
Looking like some sort of psychedelic brainscan what we are watching is not immediately clear until birds and boats and people start coming into view.
It is beautiful stuff and reminded me of similar moments in Fernando Meirelles brilliant "The Constant Gardener".
In fact some of the tone of that film is present here too as we meet a pair of Madrid police detectives arriving in the Guadalquivir Marshes.
Young women have been turning up dead here for some years and now two sisters have gone missing.
The two cops are very different in both appearance and method.
The older man - Juan- doesn't sleep much- possibly not at all.
He drinks and his physical interrogation methods are not restrained by the gender or ages of his subjects.
Pedro on the other hand is by the book- mostly.
He has a wife in Madrid who is about to give birth to his child.
 |
| Juan and Pedro |
Nothing ruins tension like the ability of a character to instantly get in touch with help or reveal important details before pacing deems them appropriate.
In Marshland there are no cellphones, computers or of course Googling.
It makes for a tenser affair.
It is the inclusion - very subtly- of a political undercurrent that aids this tension even further.
This is a country in the midst of social and economic upheaval.
Jobs are hard to come by and we see graffiti mentioning Franco - the controversial leader of Spain from 1936 until 1975.
Several people talk of their desperation to leave the town.
We are told that the two missing teenaged girls were too.
When their bodies are found they have missing toes and fingers and violent rape is evident.
Chief suspect is the handsome ex boyfriend of one of the girls but no one will talk freely.
What separates "Marshland" from films I might have expected it to resemble going in is a reluctance to glorify anything.
As stunning as the cinematography is- specially at night- there is no flash to the movie.
There is shooting and even a car chase but this is all grounded in the harsh reality of real life.These are working cops- not superheroes.
I know nothing of the lead actors but they are perfect in the roles.
Both look like they could themselves be killers - there is something a little off with both.
And so it is with the film on the whole.
Much is left up to the imagination of the viewer.
What is happening at the hunting lodge?
Who is the man in the hat?
There are many questions and all lead one to dark places of the imagination.
More girls are being targeted as the movie goes on but none will talk.
There is the suggestion of sexual violence and possibly worse.
"Marshland" is the sort of film that is enjoyable to watch but will be I suspect be considerably more effective on second viewing.
There is a lot going on and I know that I missed a lot of what was lurking, barely suggested underneath.
One character in particular has a history that once known will make subsequent viewings quite a bit more fascinating.
 |
| The cinematography from aerial shots to rain filled action and in particular the night scenes is superb |
Possibilities ran through my mind that I am keen to explore with a second look.
It can't be easy to pull off this sort of thing - a movie that has a clear series of events that nonetheless might be entirely misleading.
Its nothing overt - there is no John Doe to reveal the entire plan to us as the film ends.
It is this subtlety that makes it work as well as it does.
This is a slow burn of a film - a moody concoction that somehow manages to recall "The Wages of Fear", "A Touch of Evil" and "Blue Velvet".
Very, very good.
What happened to the man in the hat?
ReplyDelete