Tense Spanish-French thriller to screen in Westport this evening

Westport Film Club is starting up its new year of Wednesday-night movies at the W cinema on this evening, September 6 at 8.45pm. Kicking off the 2023/24 season is ‘The Beasts’, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s disturbing true-crime drama about xenophobia and conflict over resources

At the beginning of the film, a macabre scene unfolds in slow motion, with local Spanish people engaging in a tradition known as a ‘rapa das bestas’, where they wrestle wild horses with their own bare hands. A foreboding scene, it quickly sets the tone.

‘The Beasts’ is based on the true story of a French couple who relocate to Spain’s Santoalla in Galicia’s ‘wild west’ countryside only to find obstacles in the local community, opposed to their perceived gentrification of the land.

Denis Ménochet and Marina Foïs play the couple, Antoine and Olga, whose big ideas on modernising farming in the local area don’t go down well. From the get-go they unleash venom in the local community by casting a deciding vote a communal plan to sell out to a wind-turbine company – which, if granted, would have given the locals a decent payment that could allow them to escape their lives of poverty and hard farm labour.

The vetoing acts as the catalyst for events to follow, with two local brothers – Xan (Luis Zahera) and Lorenzo (Diego Anido), both brutish in nature and living with their ancient, widowed mother – particularly angered by what they perceive as uppity foreigners coming in and telling them how to live their lives.

The French couple start to suspect that someone is tampering with their crops and sabotaging their yield when they find signs of lead poisoning and trace the cause to a pair of car batteries thrown into their water well. Soon Antoine begins covertly videoing his neighbours’ behaviour in a hi-tech surveillance operation, which only serves to irk them even further.

The anxious string score and Zahera’s menacing body language as the boorish neighbour, will have viewers sitting on the edge of their seats for most of this film.

The climax of the story comes earlier than expected with an unforgettable scene – the one which you’ve been dreading since the story unfolded. Soon the focus of the film shifts to Antoine’s wife Olga who has to deal with the aftermath of her husband’s actions and the ensuing family fallout.

There is familiar a sense of unease throughout the entire film: a deeply uncomfortable portrait of xenophobia and the fallout from fear-driven protectionism, that’s all the more terrifying for being true.

• Louise Healy is a member of Westport Film Club. ‘The Beasts’ screens on this evening Wednesday, September 6. The club’s annual membership fee is €40 (covering seven films). Non-members are welcome, at a charge of €10 per film. All screenings start at 8.45pm, with tickets available in the W Cinema from 8.30pm.