The Beasts

The Beasts (2022) took nine Goya awards in Spain and is based on a real murder. Antoine and Olga are a French couple who settled in a small Galician village. They farm organically and restore abandoned houses. The village votes on whether to allow wind turbines, which for the locals finally means money. The French couple vote no. From that point two neighbouring brothers begin making their life impossible. The real events differ. In a Galician village called Santoalla, a Dutch couple, Martin Verfondern and Margo Pool, were in conflict with their neighbours from the late 1990s over grazing and land. Martin was killed in 2010. There is also a documentary, Santoalla, built around Margo's own account. Adding the turbines moved the film's version onto broader ground. The way the tension is raised is expert: one bar scene, one long unbroken take, and nobody ever raising their voice. In the final forty minutes the point of view changes and the film becomes something else entirely. Good for: Spanish cinema, rural thrillers, and slowly accumulating threat. Less good for: there is little violence and it is severe when it arrives. This is not a comforting film.