La Voz offers reviews of the premieres “Fatum”, “Plan 75” and “Beau se boji”

Experts from La Voz de Galicia analyze the films “Fatum”, with which the Galician director Juan Galiñanes makes his feature film debut – leaving aside the field of animation; “Plan 75”, a Japanese film by Tokyo director Chie Hayakawa, who signs a work of dystopian clothing, but very real; and “Beau’s Afraid,” the over-the-top madness of American director Ari Aster. There are three films that have arrived in Spanish cinemas this week: a “thriller”, a drama and a delirious dramatic comedy that give a wide variety to the Galician poster.

“Fatum”, two parents and one destiny

Author: Miguel Anxo Fernandez

A gambler and a police sniper, two parents and one destiny. Based on this, Juan Galiñanes (1980) from Cambadés received his doctorate honoris causa with Fatumhis first feature film with actors after his animation debut with Holy night! Silent Night? (2016), nominated for a Goya in the field in which he already worked as an editor San Juan Nights (Angel de la Cruz, Manolo Gómez, 2005) i spirit of the forest (David Rubin, 2008). His further career in short film, in screenplay and, above all, in publishing ranks him among the most solvent values ​​of cinema and television from this area, and now he makes a definitive leap into the Spanish market with the production company Vaca Films (and his commitment to A Coruña as a set). and the sponsorship of Luis Tosaro in another record confirming this at Olimpo, followed by Álex García and Elena Anaya pulling the poster.

A combination of thriller and a drama, based on his own script from a few years ago, a script to which Alberto Marini added his craft, whose career seems linked to that of the Montfort director Dani de la Torre, with whom Juan Galiñanes is also associated. Fatum it is the fate of the old, the fatality of fate. A family man hooked on betting is caught in the middle of a robbery, along with his wife and their little boy. A police officer receives the sad news that his son is hospitalized with a serious threat to his life.

From there, the action develops towards an unpredictable outcome that Galiñanes proposes without giving the viewer a breather, using a clean narrative, without harshness or harshness – it is worth mentioning his abandonment of drone poisoning, for example -, although with collateral damage about those parents (Elena Anaya is also …) which cannot help but feel guilty.

The happy point of style: an intelligent game of mirrors, reflected images, with the good and bad of each of us before the dilemma of choice. Enjoy.

“FATUM”

Spain, 2023.

Director: Juan Galinanes.

Performers: Luis Tosar, Álex García, Elena Anaya, Arón Piper, María Luisa Mayol, Pepa Gracia, Ethan Álvarez, Valentina Quiza, Derek León, Xabier Deive.

Thriller. 91 minutes.

“Plan 75”, they are old and annoying

Author: MA Fernandez

He received the Golden Camera in the demanding part certain consideration in Cannes, and was shortlisted by Japan for the recent Academy Awards. It’s not bad for actress Chie Hayakawa either, debuting as a solo director who was competing with the experienced actress Chieko Baishô (1941), whose rich career began in 1961, with a hundred and a half films behind her, mostly under the ranks of veterans and still active Yogi Yamada (1931). The 80-year-old star reinforces the credibility of this dystopian offering filmed according to the script of the author herself, which could very well take place in present-day Japan, a country with a high rate of longevity (with the economic pressure that implies from many points of view).

The feature film begins with a warning that the aging population is cutting off new generations, even causing episodes of violence, which is why the government encourages those over 75 who want to get out of the way. Hence the title plan. An amount in yen equivalent to one thousand euros is offered to enjoy them to your heart’s content in their last days. Beyond the natural doubts that any author or any new work may have, proposing four protagonists, seemingly without any connection, runs the risk of unbalancing the plot, although this does not affect the final rounding.

we have in Plan 75 a lady who at the age of almost eighty continues to clean the hotel, and when she gets fired she feels like trash. A young civil servant working hard towards his goals to find clients for the program until one day his own uncle shows up. An incinerator worker sorting through items left by the deceased. A woman who works as a telephone operator for those who agree to say goodbye. In the end, it can be shown that the young need the elderly, and the solution to that demographic problem is less desperate. Or know.

“PLAN 75”

Japan, France, Philippines, 2022.

Director: Chie Hayakawa.

Cast: Chieko Baishô, Hayato Isomura, Stefanie Arianne, Yumi Kawai, Taka Takao, Hisako Ôkata.

105 minutes.

“Beau is afraid,” three steps into delirium

Eduardo Galan Blanco

It’s no coincidence that some of the best independent American films of recent years —Her, pure vice— have Joaquin Phoenix as the protagonist. IN Beau is afraid, the most famous cleft lip in the history of cinematography insists on another great creation of a split madman, and this interpretation becomes the best of the excessive film, three hours long, at times great, at times whimsical and often irritating. But important.

The phoenix, frozen like a small animal in constant alertness to the dangers of the forest, all eyes in motion, lips cut as a stigma—Gaspar Hauser’s birth punishment—creates a summary of all our neurotic fears. He lives confined in a dilapidated apartment which he leaves only to go to the office of his therapist – the unsettling Stephen McKinley Henderson – a slightly menacing god.

Based on his short Boythe young Jewish filmmaker Ari Aster, who has already surprised us with two notable and successful psychological horror films —hereditary, in the middle of summer— a chaotic, Freudian and surreal film about a subjugated identity is allowed; a miserable epic divided into three crazy steps. The Oedipus protagonist, like Ulysses or Dorothea from Wizard of Ozhe must arrive at the funeral of a doting mother — the first sequence is the birth that brings our poor hero into the world, with the mother screaming in worry because her son is not crying — and on the way he is run over by a schizophrenic couple who take care of him and adopt him so that, after escaping of them, met another family in the forest —hippie– from reception, equally vampiric. Aster’s narrative style is sarcastic, hypnotic, Kafkaesque and highly original, but with witty homages to Fellini, the Coens, Jean Cocteau, Charlie Kaufman, Kurosawa dreams and even Bosco or Peter Pan from Barrie.

“BEAU IS AFRAID”

United States-Canada, 2023.

Director: Ari Aster.

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Patti LuPone, Richard Kind, Denis Ménochet.

Dramatic comedy. 178 minutes.