{"id":5646,"date":"2015-08-04T08:28:28","date_gmt":"2015-08-04T07:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=5646"},"modified":"2015-08-06T23:39:04","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T22:39:04","slug":"marshland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2015\/08\/04\/marshland\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshland"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marshland\"<\/a>
Marshland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nRelease date:<\/B> 7 August 2015

\nDistributor:<\/B> Altitude Film Entertainment

\nDirector:<\/B> Alberto Rodríguez

\nWriters:<\/B> Alberto Rodríguez, Rafael Cobos

\nCast:<\/B>Javier Gutiérrez, Raúl Arévalo, Mar Rodría Varod

\nSpain 2014

\n105 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Spain, 1980. When teenage sisters go missing in the remote and barren Andaluz wetlands, two detectives from Madrid are sent to investigate. It\u2019s immediately clear to them that the locals, even the girls\u2019 own father, are virtually indifferent to their disappearance, believing that the sisters, with their \u2018loose\u2019 morals, have either run away or brought their fate upon themselves. Although the town\u2019s residents remain stubborn in their refusal to help, the detectives soon discover that the girls are not the first who have gone missing from the area, and that a serial killer (or killers) is sexually exploiting the women before callously disposing of their bodies.<\/p>\n

Juan (the excellent Javier Gutiérrez) is the experienced detective with a murky past under the Franco regime. Pragmatic, wily, manipulative, he\u2019s better at needling out information over a few drinks, or, if that doesn\u2019t work, using his fists. His new partner is the idealistic rookie, his future already in jeopardy after publicly criticising Franco\u2019s still-powerful generals. Played by Raúl Arévalo, Pedro is the more earnest, less charismatic of the two, his integrity at odds with the casual way business is done in the marshlands. <\/p>\n

Director Alberto Rodríguez\u2019s atmospheric Marshland<\/I>, (which swept the Goya awards on its release last year) can feel at times like a by-the-numbers police procedural, but it\u2019s saved by its backdrop of social upheaval and unrest. The murders are used as a foil to delve into the legacy left behind by Franco, revealing a country struggling to find its way forward. The climate of fear that existed under his regime still permeates the small, impoverished town, where the police don\u2019t ask too many questions (turning a blind eye to the drug running in the region\u2019s swampy rivers), and where powerful business owners are still untouchable. But things are slowly changing, as men strike for better working conditions, and women are lured away to places like the Costa del Sol with promises of hotel work. But as the women become more independent, more sexually liberated, they are shunned by the community, and left vulnerable to the town\u2019s dangerous predators. <\/p>\n

Parallels have been drawn between the film and True Detective<\/I>, but it\u2019s also reminiscent of Arthur Penn\u2019s excellent Florida-set Night Moves<\/I>. Marshland<\/I> is a terrifically well-crafted sunshine noir, with the genre\u2019s usual shadows replaced by the searing bright light and heat of southern Spain. Rodríguez is clearly inspired by the atmospheric, treacherous bayous of the deep American south; the marshes are like fetid pockets of water, where bodies and secrets can lurk unfound just below the surface. The flat, open spaces are stunningly captured by cinematographer Alex Catalan, with some remarkable, abstract aerial shots of the land below, the rivers and tributaries, forming resonant motifs. <\/p>\n

Though the violence that the women are subjected to, and its casual dismissal, is deeply disturbing, the victims themselves are never really fleshed out by the filmmaker. It\u2019s the relationship between Juan and Pedro, between the past and future, justice and abuse of power, that is the film\u2019s beating heart. Though the crime is solved, Rodríguez refuses to indulge in a neat resolution, either for the murderer, or the two detectives. <\/p>\n

Sarah Cronin<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

Watch the trailer:<\/b><\/p>\n