Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Marshland - Sunday 17th January 5:00 PM

Our film this week is Marshland,  a Spanish film set in "the fabled wetlands region of Andalusia, home to a series of barren, yet forbiddingly beautiful landscapes quite unlike any other" (Herald Sun).

The story unfolds in 1980 as the country still faces the consequences of change after the death of Franco a few years earlier and the restoration of democracy. We follow two, newly-partnered plainclothes cops as they investigate the disappearance of two teenage sisters.

Australia's Herald Sun ranked the film as one of the best films of 2015, commenting upon the partnership between the two cops as ‘utterly mesmerising’ and the cinematography as ‘sublime’.

If the Aussies aren't your preferred arbiter of a good movie, then how about this from Empire?

"A gripping police procedural thriller from writer-director Alberto Rodríguez with understated character (and political) depth as Spain’s fascist past looms over all the characters. Rodríguez punctuates the film with stunning overhead landscape shots, delivers a burst of action in a nighttime car chase on marsh causeways and pays off with haunting ambiguity."