As Bestas Rodrigo Sorogoyen [DIRECT]
The Beasts is not an "easy" watch. It is uncomfortable, frustrating, and at times, bleak. But it is essential viewing for anyone who appreciates cinema that trusts its audience.
It doesn't hold your hand. It presents a conflict that feels ripped from the headlines of rural Europe and asks difficult questions about gentrification, isolation, and what happens when two worlds refuse to understand one another.
The Verdict: A taut, atmospheric triumph. Rodrigo Sorogoyen has crafted a film that feels timeless, anchored by some of the best acting in European cinema this decade. It serves as a stark reminder: sometimes, the scariest monsters aren't the ones under the bed, but the ones living next door.
The title is a clever trap. Who are the beasts? as bestas rodrigo sorogoyen
On the surface, it is Xan and Lorenzo. Luis Zahera delivers a volcanic, Goya-winning performance as Xan—a man so poisoned by resentment that his face twitches with barely contained rage. He is not a cartoon villain. He is a product of a dying rural economy who sees a foreigner dictating the terms of his survival. When Xan snarls, "You don’t know what hunger is," he reveals the wound: the urban elite preserving nature for their own aesthetic pleasure while rural communities starve.
Yet, the film forces us to look at Antoine. Is his stubborn idealism a form of monstrosity? He claims to be defending the landscape, but he is willing to sacrifice the economic well-being of an entire village for his principles. He refuses to compromise, to negotiate, or to leave. In the context of the community, his sainthood looks like arrogance. Sorogoyen refuses to pick a side. The beasts are not the brothers; the beast is the situation itself—a zero-sum game where empathy dies.
Just when you think As Bestas is a simple "city vs. country" revenge thriller, Sorogoyen executes a brilliant tonal shift in the final forty minutes. After the central act of violence (which will not be spoiled here), the narrative focus moves from Antoine to his wife, Olga. The Beasts is not an "easy" watch
Marina Foïs delivers a masterclass in transformation. Olga is initially the more timid of the couple—she speaks broken Spanish, she mediates, she pleads for peace. After tragedy strikes, she morphs into a cold, calculating avenger. She does not pick up a gun or a machete. Instead, she weaponizes bureaucracy, law, and language.
In a stunning sequence, Olga walks into the local municipal office and, in perfectly articulated Galician (a dialect she previously struggled with), systematically dismantles the brothers' alibi. The final confrontation is not a shootout in a barn, but a wiretap in a police station. Sorogoyen suggests that civilization’s most powerful weapon isn’t brutality—it is patience and intelligence. The ending is ambiguous, gut-wrenching, and deeply satisfying in its moral complexity.
Released in 2022, As Bestas (international title: The Beasts) is a Spanish-French co-written and directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, one of the most compelling voices in contemporary European cinema. Following his Goya-winning political thriller El Reino (2018), Sorogoyen shifts gears from urban power corridors to the rugged, mist-shrouded mountains of Galicia. The result is a slow-burn, devastatingly tense drama that explores xenophobia, land disputes, ecological greed, and the thin veneer of civilization. The film swept the Goya Awards, winning nine awards including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The title is a clever trap
Rodrigo Sorogoyen does not shoot Galicia as a postcard. He shoots it as a labyrinth. Cinematographer Álex de Pablo uses wide shots that dwarf the human figures. The monte (the mountain bushland) is a character in itself—scratchy, flammable, and impenetrable. In the film’s most stunning sequence (the night of the murder), the camera stays static as the characters vanish into the thick fog. We hear the screams before we see the act. It is a return to classical Greek tragedy: the violence happens off-stage, but its echo is unbearable.
The sound design is a masterwork. The mooing of distant cows, the screech of a woodcutter’s saw, the howl of the wind through the eucalyptus trees—these are not background noises; they are the weapons of psychological warfare.
Sorogoyen also deploys a devastating narrative trick: empathy. For the first hour, we hate Xan. But in the final act, we see him humiliated, trapped by his own crime, his family falling apart. When he weeps in his truck, we realize he is also a victim of the land’s brutal logic. He is not a monster; he is a man who has become monstrous.
