The Beasts

My co-writer Isabel Peña and I like to put the spectator (i.e. ourselves) in the other person’s shoes, in the most unexpected situations. When we create characters, we force ourselves to understand them. From the antagonism between a newly settled French couple and the local inhabitants, Rodrigo Sorogoyen creates an inextricable, distressing and dangerous situation. Carried by a Franco-Spanish cast (as in Madre (Mother)), the film stands out for the way its actors are directed: a simmering Denis Ménochet is impressive, and Luis Zahera plays his role like a man possessed. "The writing of the sequences, structured around the key moments of verbal confrontation, takes us into a parallel territory with no physical outlines or boundaries. The closed field of individual experiences suddenly draws an ill-fitting mental geography, replacing what we thought was a serene landscape with the abyss of a catastrophe." (Didier Péron; Libération)