The Wasteland Review: A Fierce Fable About The Need To Mature In A Hostile Environment | El Páramo

Starring: Inma Cuesta, Asier Flores, Roberto Álamo

Director: Rowan Athale

Streaming Platform: Netflix (click to watch) 

Filmyhype Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and half star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

David Casademunt makes his feature film debut with The Wasteland (El Páramo) (The Beast), a film that he directs and co-writes with Martí Lucas and Fran Menchón. It is a simple a priori production, with few locations and characters and where the setting rules, since what the realization seeks is to create tension and restlessness. In this sense, the locations of Teruel become the ideal set for a story very closed in on itself in which the universe of the characters diminishes as time passes. The film was presented at the latest edition of the Sitges Film Festival, garnering positive reviews and can be seen from the 6th on the Netflix platform.

The Wasteland (El Páramo) The Story

Diego lives with his parents in an isolated steppe whose confines his parents have marked with various scarecrows. We are in the Spain of the 19th century and every precaution is insufficient to stay out of the madness of war. In their little universe, everything is a discovery: Lucía and Salvador want the little one to learn to fend for himself as soon as possible, whether it be kneading bread, taking care of the rabbits or tidying up the house. Somehow, they fend for themselves until they discover that a presence is stalking them.

It is then that the life lessons become more raw Diego needs to learn to use a shotgun and brandish a knife to defend himself and feed himself. One fine day, Salvador meets a badly wounded man who dies shortly after. Determined to take him with his family, he leaves home causing Lucía to gradually fall into a spiral of depression and paranoia that leads her to seclude herself with Diego inside the house. Alone, they will have no choice but to defend themselves against the beast that has condemned them to be vigilant.

The Wasteland Review and analysis

As we said at the beginning of this review, The Wasteland (El Páramo) is an atmosphere film and, due to its own formal characteristics, it needs powerful interpretations. Inma Cuesta is a good choice as the main interpreter and the young Asier Flores who debuted in Pain and Glory makes a good tandem with her. Roberto Álamo has a fleeting but solvent presence.

Beyond the casting, another of the film’s strengths is the soundtrack created by Diego Navarro from Tenerife, which gives the film the patina of mystery that is essential so that the viewer becomes uneasy as time passes by. characters. Some Celtic rhythm of undoubted beauty that illustrates the most traditional passages is sneaked into the scores.

However, The Wasteland (El Páramo) also has the burden of dragging some problems. One of them is to use some blows of effect that are never justified, although the greatest of all is that the tricks to maintain interest seem repetitive, weighing down the middle part of the footage, which ends up being somewhat heavy. It is true that he manages to display an imaginary that generates bad vibes from popular songs that portrayed war or family and gender violence with total normality to the little wooden figures, the scarecrows or the austere way of life in the most absolute solitude.

As is evident from what is happening, the idea is to convey the feeling of claustrophobia that the protagonists have, something that in fact, after what we have been living in recent years, is doubly unpleasant. If viewers are still sensitive to the issue of confinement, they may be a bit intimidated by certain passages in the film.

But in the end it seems to be clear that what we have to fear is the inner beast, that irrepressible one that feeds on fear and transforms us into what we fear the most, causing us to shut ourselves up and become obsessed to the point of losing our sanity. and for endangered those we overprotect.

During the hour and a half that the film lasts, we want to know more and more about its protagonists and the plot that surrounds them. This is achieved thanks to a very well-kept atmosphere, with an exquisite photography design and a soundtrack that is as fantastic as it is emotional. As in other quite similar productions such as La Bruja (2015), Midsommar (2019) or Signs (2012), The Wasteland (El Páramo) is simmering so that, little by little, we discover what really happens in this inhospitable place. Its cast is the great strength of the film, with an Inma Cuesta who goes from sanity to madness with some solvency and, especially, with a young Asier Flores who promises to be one of the great Spanish actors to take into account in the next few years.

Once its many metaphors are understood, we find some drawbacks that, in our opinion, can hinder the full enjoyment of viewing. The narrative style becomes somewhat amateurish in those situations in which, for example, the child speaks aloud with the animals to express his thoughts to the viewer. In the same way, we must be honest and recognize that, in the third act of the film, it becomes somewhat repetitive, and may even make us disconnect at times and miss a more polished and surprising outcome, which, my eyes, it is still the great burden of current horror cinema. We already knew something about The Beast from the Páramo and I must admit that this was my biggest prejudice and fear with the film. Would they have managed to give it the necessary realism so as not to remove us from the tape? The answer is yes. Of course, the great work done by HYPNOTIC VFX in developing the visual effects has really worked in this movie’s favor.

The Last Words

The Wasteland (El Páramo) is one of those films with a dense atmosphere in which the fantasy plot is actually a pretext to talk about the passage to maturity and the need to leave behind the guardianship of parents to open a path of their own. What is undoubtedly undeniable is the excellent work of the actors chosen to develop this story. Inma Cuesta’s transition towards madness, Roberto Álamo’s disturbing intervention and the interpretive weight that Asier Flores assumes to bring the film to completion are compelling reasons to give El páramo a chance.