I had pending to watch As Bestas, a French-Spanish (Galician) film since quite a while ago. I wanted to watch it with my parents, particularly with my Galician father, but as it runs for more than 2 hours it was not easy to find the appropriate moment. This Christmas Eve has been the time. I didn't know that it was based on a true story that happened also in rural Galicia, to a Dutch couple that settled there, between 1996 and 2014. The film is particularly appealing to me cause though I am and feel so deeply Asturian, France is my second country, my second identity, and Galicia is the land of all my paternal ancestors, so I consider it my third country and identity. Dialogs in the film are in French, Galician and some Spanish I think also. It felt odd to me that I could understand better the parts in French than those in Galician, you can never disappoint your ancestors enough...
So in the film we have a French couple of "neo-rurals" that have settled somewhere in the rural interior of Galicia. These are not "digital nomads" teleworking from a small paradise, but 2 hard worker idealists that want to make a living working the land (in a traditional way it seems). From the beginning we see that they do not get on well with some of their neighbours, 2 of them in particular, 2 brothers. At first we can think that this hostility, this distrust, is because of some sort of xenophobia, which would be paradoxal in a land, Galicia, that in spite of its wild natural wealth has never managed to feed all its children, making Galicians (even more than Asturians) one of the most migrant people in the world (you can find Galicians anywhere, indeed the joke says that North Americans came across one Galician in the Moon when they landed there).
The permanent tension between the French couple and these 2 brothers, that bully them and keep a continuous threatening attitude to them creates a thick and oppressive atmosphere, accentuated by the Galician landscape and the backward feeling of the village. The "bar" where good part of the interaction between the French man and the 2 brothers takes place feels like taken out from another century. This reminds me of one discussion with one friend of mine (also an Asturian with Galician ancestry) when he told me about how poor and less developed some parts of rural Galicia feel when compared to their Asturian counterparts. It's strange, cause on the other side, Galician cities (particularly Vigo), that is the part of Galicia that I know, feel way more cosmopolitan and developed than Asturian cities.
As the film evolves, the reason for the resentment that the 2 brothers express for the French couple unveils. The couple were some of the main opponents that refused selling their lands to an energy company that wanted to set up an Eolian farm in the village, and needed for it the lands of all the villagers, so this refusal prevented other villagers from selling. We arrive then to the most intense moment of the film, the discussion where the main brother explains full of bitterness and hatred how his miserable life would have changed if he had sold his lands and left the village for the city. It's a point where you end up empathizing with a character that up to that point had been profoundly revolting.
Well, I think that's all, I can not tell more without fully spoiling the film. Just reserve 2 hours of your life (OK, a bit more if you have to search the torrent and download it) and watch it.