Infiesto

Infiesto is s small mining town in the province of Asturias, in northwest Spain. The time is the end of winter, a dark, rainy, melancholic season. The lead characters are Inspector Samuel (male) and Subinspector Castro (female). The movie opens with the roadside appearance of a teenager, alive, kidnapped long ago and presumed dead.

The first half is rather good; it shows routine police work with frustrating leads, abundance of dead ends and uncooperative witnesses. It also shows in passing the heavy industry that pollutes the air and defiles the verdant, idyllic landscapes of Asturias with open pits, denuded hillsides and smokestacks.

However, the story veers midway into horror movie territory. Improbabilities and impossibilities pile up and, what could have been a good police procedural slides into the (unintentionally) funny. Direction, cinematography and acting are good, but they can's cope with the material. The time frame of the action is the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and this is brought into play but is mostly inessential to the action.

I was intrigued by the choice of a town with the strange name Infiesto. It is close to infesto (I infest) and to Infierno (hell), both pertinent to the happenings in the movie.

The plot follows the investigative police thriller style. We accompany detectives Samuel and Castro around the municipality of Piloña, Spain, in their investigation. However, the plot itself is simple and devoid of twists. Its linearity becomes an issue when we reach the climax.

Part of the premise is that the investigation takes place at the time of the COVID pandemic, but that doesn't affect the plot. The pandemic is just a backdrop to the plot, present but indifferent. The plot tries to place the pandemic as a relevant factor, to the point of counting the days of confinement at the time when curfews and quarantines came into effect worldwide; the pandemic context seems to be just an artifice to attract an audience; the plot would remain the same without the pandemic.

In the end, the feeling is one of exploitation, a twist that feels forced. Nothing in the plot indicates that that would be the end, the plot just plays a trick, an Ex-Machina that connects all the points, leaving us with the bitter taste of disassociation. The insinuations, the theories, all falls flat.

The name of the film can only be premeditated. Infest.

With a linear and simplistic plot, marked by a meaningless and calculated twist, and appropriating a historical moment that does not interfere with the plot, Infiesto should only be proud of its sepia cinematography of a decrepit Spanish region. The atmosphere is tense and suffocating, but the story is thin.

(2023) Infiesta (In Spanish with English subtitles) THRILLER

It takes place during the year of Covid, and two homicide detectives of Samuel García (Isak Férriz) and Marta Castro(Iria Del Río) are assigned to the abduction case when a young ragged and disheveled girl reappears in the middle of the road before she is then put in a hospital. When the two detectives are coming up to see her, they apparently have their own problems at home, while Samuel is forbidden to see his mother at a care home, Marta's boyfriend has covid. By the time they got their first real lead a guy, Manuel Gomez known as "Dog Killer" somewhat owns a winery, only when he's found out he shoots himself.

The movie was involving for about a hour and 20 minutes up until the third bad guy was discovered, totally ignores proper police protocol. Like, the police had the photo all along and they do not investigate everyone in the photo immediately, how ridiculous! Netflix must have wanted them to wrap the movie up or something!

It's not bad, it keeps exciting until the end, although I can't give it more than 5 stars.

Too much negligence by the police makes it more exciting and also more frustrating, the movie tries to copy the crime thriller genre of other good movies, but it doesn't reach the level, they tried.

It's poorly executed and some actors, like Marta Castro, one of the police inspectors, are not very convincing in my opinion. On the other hand the actor Luis Zahera, Marquina in the movie, is my favorite, he is a greeeat actor that I know from other movies and series. It's a pity that he only has a small supporting role.

The theme about the covid in Spain is the worst, once again remembering the trauma that was experienced during the confinements in Spain, nothing relevant to the theme of the movie, I almost did not see it just for this, although I must say they didn't pushed the issue too much. So in my opinion it cannot be called a covid thriller, a terrible way to classify it, but a thriller filmed in Asturias, green Spain, and the most attractive thing about this movie.

There's been thousands of films just like this one, done much better, so what was the point of any of this? Having it take place over the pandemic was also pointless, especially melodramatically naming the days of the lockdown like chapters that are supposed to mean something to the story's significance, because they didn't. Trying to convince the viewers the antagonists motives were a result of the pandemic was a far stretch, even to the best of imaginations. I kept waiting for some big twist or big reveal, and it never came. The entire story was just a waste of 96 minutes. What made this even more frustrating was the abysmal lack of basic policing protocols, because every crime scene both cops were at they had their paws all over the evidence. Did the producers forget that cops are supposed to wear latex gloves at crime scenes? Never mind there's a pandemic going on and they're still touching everything in sight lol. And in the final act when the female cop goes down the shaft, she's breathing so loud and heavy like she was the victim that was scared to death, and not a trained cop. This entire production was amateur-hour and a complete waste of time. It was a pointless and frustrating watch. It's a generous 4/10 for the somewhat believable performances and the decent cinematography, score and tone the film had.