Somos Lo Que Hay - We Are What We Are 5/10
Upon entering the tiny screen eight at Newcastle’s Empire Cinema my heart sunk a little. I had persuaded the long suffering girlfriend to attend the performance, I had visited the local late opening pound shop and had secured the services of a pack of white Malteasers for mid film nourishment. Drifting in on cloud nine I was then struck by that noise that only teenagers can make. The entire back row of a screen of only five rows was occupied by chewing, loud-mouthed, overconfident and, I don’t say this lightly, (evidence to follow) shit for brained persons’ of assorted sex aged at around fourteen.
It was two minutes into the film when the first distinctly non-Chinese character spoke.
Girl One: “Urgh! Is it all in subtitles?”
Boy One: “You are fuckin’ kiddin’ mi like.”
A mildly humorous joke, perhaps? Then it went on.
Girl Three: “It’s ok, Chinese make better horror films than us so it should be ok.”
(Pause)
Boy One: “I’m not reading fucking subtitles for a whole film.”
Girl One: “I don’t understand French.”
(Group exits)
It was at about this point that I was able to concentrate on the film so it shall be from here that the review shall begin. For those of you who didn’t guess by the title the film is in the Spanish language. Not so obvious from the title is that it is the story of a family coping with the loss of their father, oh yeah and they just happen to be ritualistic cannibals imminently requiring their next feed.
Character wise I amused myself by likening them (with some success) to the Simpsons. The Dad character is Homer, useless and someone who the whole family would be seemingly better off without, that is until he is gone and it becomes clear that he is in fact the glue of the family. The mother is Marge, a tormented pragmatist desperate to keep her family together while pushing them away by being so controlling and not wanting to let anyone spread their wings. Maggie and Bart are the two brothers Bart the overly aggressive and unpredictable of the pair and Maggie the Machiavellian quiet type. Then there is the daughter, Lisa, the strangely attractive, (a friend of mine once described her as his ideal woman) know it all of the bunch and the person who really should be leading the family in most situations.
The pacing of the film is painfully slow, the lighting is so low that it is often difficult to know what is going on and the story makes no attempt to explain backstory or even events pertinent to the narrative, such as what the ritual actually is and what they believe it does. One redeeming feature was the sound track which sounded like it was being played by an orchestra of the dead locked in a basement.
It could be the case that I am stupid or, as I suspect, it could be the case that it is a foreign film with a pretty wide release, BBC and UK Lottery funding which means that reviewers are seeing more in it than is there. I’m open to interpretations of this film by others who have seen it send them in, I’m all ears.
It summery I will leave you with the comments of the guy sat along the row from me
“*snore, snore,”
Wife covers him with a coat
“snore, snore.”
If you want some Spanish Horror try this instead
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