Name: Oscuro animal
Genre: Drama
Released: 2016-09-29
Duration: 1 h 47 min
Rating: 6.4
Cast: Marleyda Soto, Luisa Vides, Verónica Carvajal

Three women trying to survive in a world full or violence of war. The emphasis on sounds and visuals without any useful dialog prevented me from following the story lines

Saw this movie at the Rotterdam film festival (IFFR.NL) 2016. It was presented as part of the official Competition section, which this year was confined to only eight movies. The latter inevitably gives rise to expectations, but whatever qualities are completely lost on me, even when I had remembered the synopsis better. Now, having re-read the plot after having seen the movie, I can confirm three women as main protagonists, each with her own independent story yet sporadically crossing the survivalistic struggles of the other two. Disregarding the fact that I lost track on their respective stories altogether, the movie on itself looks technically well made. Nevertheless, is a story not crucial to grasp and to allow us following it without having consulted the announcement beforehand?

Reading the festival announcement in retrospect, the festival programmer who wrote the announcement considered it a novel approach. If it is, I don't find it a way forward. He/she stresses the lack of dialog and the emphasis on sounds and visual images. Be that as it may, dialogues can serve much better to outline each one's motives and may provide background information that cannot be derived from the visuals. I know they say a picture tells more than a thousand words, but it does not work all the time. Anyway, in this case it is completely lost on me, so I declare it a failure.

Of course, it is a daring undertaking to survive in a hostile environment, be it a man or a woman, but it is particularly daunting for women who are alone and with no obvious way to defend themselves. The IMDb score of 7.4 can be explained probably as coming from sympathy with the three women in difficult circumstances, each of them coming much farther than could be expected upfront. Apparently the festival visitors thought along similar lines, as this movie received a relatively high average score of 3.85 (out of 5) and thus ended as 79th (out of 178) for the audience award. My low score when leaving the theater got probably lost in the high scores from the voting majority.

Spanish-language cinema across Spain and Latin America is united by its engagement with history, cultural identity, and social transformation. In Spain, films often balance artistic experimentation with popular genres while reflecting on memory, politics, and family. In Latin America, cinema has been deeply tied to questions of colonial legacy, resistance, and community resilience, ranging from intimate dramas to bold political allegories.

Ana Torrent in The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

The drama genre is a broad category that features stories portraying human experiences, emotions, conflicts, and relationships in a realistic and emotionally impactful way. Dramas delve into the complexities of human life, often exploring themes of love, loss, morality, societal issues, personal growth, with the aim to evoke an emotional response from the audience by presenting relatable and thought-provoking stories.

Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)

Oscuro animal tells the story of three women forced to flee their homes in a war torn region in Colombia. .

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Oscuro animal

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