The Beasts (2022) Movie Review

The opening scene of The Beasts introduces us to a French couple, Antoine and Olga, who move to a picturesque but decaying hamlet in Galicia, Spain. They dream of farming and living a simple life, away from the hustle and bustle of city living. However, their decision to vote against a wind turbine proposal sets them on a very different path.

The villagers, tired of their gruelling existence, saw the wind farm as their chance of escape, but Antoine, an outsider, spoiled things for them. This caused a fallout that reeked of xenophobia and racism, with locals pitted against foreigners. However, the conflict also highlighted the divide between those with opportunities versus the excluded, revealing that freedom of movement is much easier when you've got the money to pay for it.

The Beasts takes place a few months after the wind farm vote, where we find ourselves in a febrile atmosphere of seething resentment. Brothers Xan and Lorenzo are caustic and ill-tempered towards Antoine, at first through pranks and insults, then escalating to bullying and intimidation. Like animals marking their territory, they even urinate on his furniture. Antoine retaliates by covertly filming them, but they respond by destroying his crops. This noose of no-good machismo builds to an inevitable explosion that's all the more disturbing for its roots in real events.

The film is a fictionalized retelling of events that took place between the end of the 1990s and 2010. Then, it was a Dutch couple, Martin Verfondern and Margo Pool, who had moved to Galicia from the Netherlands. Rather than a wind farm, they fell out with locals over land-grazing rights and sustainability, minor disagreements that escalated from resentment into rage.

The Beasts, like Straw Dogs, Sam Peckinpah's film about the horrors an American couple faces in rural Cornwall, portrays beastliness as another face of masculinity. It's a common theme across storytelling, where we wear human masks, but are we any better than animals? The horror embedded in urban notions of rural life as backward or mentally deficient and fears of the unknown are other factors that contribute to the film's unsettling tone.

However, The Beasts takes a more measured approach to the subject matter. It situates the conflict in an external trigger, the wind farm, while revealing the complexity of social and economic exclusion, a horror rarely addressed on the big screen.

The Beasts is a film of two halves, with two distinct stories. The first is about men, and it burns with explosive energy. The second, like God's Creatures, introduces us to the women who live with and through such destruction. It's much quieter, but just as shocking and memorable.

Olga's response to the terrors that come to the farm is the other side of the endless territorial conflict. It's a reminder that beneath our masks and human skin, we can be more than beasts. The film highlights that there is more to life than just conflict, and the need to find common ground and coexist peacefully.

The film's cinematography and score add to its dark and foreboding atmosphere, amplifying the tension throughout. The use of handheld cameras and natural lighting provides a sense of realism and immerses the audience in the story. The soundtrack is haunting and eerie, adding to the unsettling mood of the film.

At its core, The Beasts is a story about the human capacity for violence and the ways in which it can be both fueled and justified by social and economic factors. It is a film that resonates strongly with contemporary issues of xenophobia, nationalism, and inequality, while also offering a universal meditation on the darker aspects of human nature.

In conclusion, The Beasts is a powerful and thought-provoking film that explores complex themes with nuance and depth. It is a testament to the skill of its director and cast that they are able to convey such emotional depth and complexity with such economy and precision. The film is a must-see for anyone interested in contemporary cinema and the exploration of the human psyche.