The Night of the Sunflowers

'The Night of the Sunflowers' is a superior Spanish thriller, telling the story of the tragic aftermath of an attack on a woman, and set against the backdrop of a dying, depopulated rural town. Technically, the film's merits include an evocative score, the subtle use of visual clues, and unmelodramatic acting. But perhaps the strongest aspect of the movie is the way it allows the viewer to see events from different perspectives, and thereby not only drives the evolution of the story, but also gives it a truly three-dimensional quality. The film begins with a segment which, nearing its end, savagely reverses the audience's expectations and sympathies; and thereafter, the story is told in achronological, overlapping fragments, each one offering a different perspective on events. And because of its technical merits, the film's use of this device never damages the naturalistic mood. As events reach their conclusion, you find yourself really caring about the characters, even the ostensibly unattractive ones. 'The Night of the Sunflowers' is a fine film, that never tries to pretend to be more than it is, but which offers rewards through the care with which it portrays its world.

"When the sunflower plant, Helianthus annuus, is in the bud stage, the head and the leaves do indeed track the path of the Sun. The genus name Helianthus is from the Greek helios "sun" and anthos "flower". Interestingly, however, and contrary to popular belief, once the massive topmost flower opens into the radiance of yellow petals, it slows and then stops moving, ending up permanently facing east." ---Solar flower, New Scientist, 3 August 2002

Why am I quoting this interesting trivia? Sunflower buds, we all know, keep moving but a stage comes when it does not move any further. Why am I discussing the night? That's the name of the film. The only teeny-weeny bit about sunflowers in the film But then the sun is not relevant for the night, is it? The near oxy-moronic title give a life to the movie after the film is over—in many ways similar to the disturbing Austrian-French film "Cache" made by Michael Haneke. For a cineaste who can sit through the film right up to the end of the film, the real punch line from the director comes in the form of an audible TV program statement about bees in a beehive, that do not attack unless provoked. This is an innocuous fact but is loaded with meaning in the context of the film's ending. This is a statement heard by the unpunished rapist on the prowl.

The Spanish director Sánchez-Cabezudo's film is based on his own script. (He is the latest among formidable Spanish directors making good films based on their own scripts, following the tradition of the gifted directors, Amenabar and Almodovar). Most viewers would appreciate or find good entertainment in the film while mulling over in the different non-linear narrative segments of the story of rape, vigilante killing, extra-marital sex, corruption, village vs urban comparisons, love for a dead spouse. Each segment provides a different Rashomon-type perspective of sections of the same story from a different angle, as seen by a different character. The director uses a technique used in modern pulp literature most recently used by Dan Browne for his book The Da Vinci Code. While the technique might baffle a few, most viewers would derive entertainment as they are constantly challenged to derive the entertainment.

The film offers dollops of entertainment ice-cream that most viewers want—-mystery, exploration of new found caves, a rape scene, a brief scene of violent death, and some endearing performances from the actors. If presented as a straight chronological narrative—the story could be made into a typical Hollywood thriller. But why is it different? It is different because of its end.

That is where the director and screenplay writer scores a bull's-eye—for a patient viewer who does not leave the theater once he sees the end credits begin to roll. The comment about the bees drive home the uncomfortable, parallel moral issues that Haneke raised in "Cache." Europeans and many of us prefer to retain status quo rather than rake up disturbing moral and social issues. It is convenient for us to do so. It is not because the issues are resolved. In this film the main culprit, a rapist is never brought to justice. If an attempt was made to bring him to justice, three persons would go behind bars for manslaughter, a homicide would surface, the reputation of an erring wife would become public knowledge, a good policeman's daughter would find out that her husband and father of her unborn baby is a corrupt cop and so on.

The film is, therefore, not merely a film to be appreciated for its structure but its underpinning question on morality. The film shows us that evil is not limited to a rapist but to the best of us. A good man could do evil in a fraction of a second. And to defend lesser evils, the bigger evil gets away. Only to scar our conscience for ever. Spanish cinema is on the move this decade. Sánchez-Cabezudo's film is good but the post-script in his screenplay is truly formidable. There indeed comes a time these days when "sunflowers" mature, stop turning towards the sun and only face the east.

Because it is convenient!

La Noche de los Girasoles, or The Night of the Sunflowers in English, is quite clearly a product of some of contemporary cinema's more recent efforts. The film takes inspiration from, and pays homage to, a number of quality offerings from around Europe and The United States from recent times, while delivering an experience that flicks from the slow burning and ominous to the fast paced and shocking. All this within the realm of a crime-fused world of noir. The film is a quite gripping tale about desperate people in a predicament they should not and do not deserve to be in. But the film adopts a multi-strand approach, although maintains its study of circulation rather well for good measure. The film won me over for its look at greed, retribution, corruption, honour, vigilantism and desperation on a couple of character fronts.

The film can be best summed up by observing the opening twenty minutes and closing five. The same individual, whom the film opens and closes with, ambles through the world doing whatever depraved activity he is driven to do, but has no idea of the repercussions they entail. The attitude is a sort of nonchalant one; an attitude that disregards life and what devastation erupts in the wake of it. These emotions and ideas are ones that crop up at various points with a couple of people, most notably individuals to do with disguising a murder and accepting money on an immoral level. These events that are born out of a prior, negative catalyst are created and further spawn scenarios that could lead to further evil or wrong doing. The overall feeling is that evil spawns an event that could spawn further evil and that could spawn an event that might induce evil still. The underlying feeling is that this film looks at a butterfly effect born out of Pandora's Box being opened up.

Some of the primary characters in the film are potholers and their task is to explore a recently found cave discovered within a rural Spanish community. This is where the overall iconography to do with the film's study enters the fray. Director Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo has his characters descend into this dank, grimy, cold, unknown and uncharted space. It's here I feel he draws on parallels with Spain as a nation. His film will be one that goes into Spain as a rural and 'unseen by the tourists' location, an unearthing and a real look at whatever cold and shallow activity, feeling and people lurk within. It is a look at a place no one else ever sees or has seen before. It is iconic of sorts that the location of the cave is used to hide the evidence that bring normal, abiding people down to the level of criminals. This supports the general theory that, if you look hard enough in the most natural and desolate of areas, you may well still be able to find wrongdoing.

The film, a Spanish one that continues the recent ascent of cinema in that respective nation, begins with a lone male individual driving to a certain destination. The emphasis on his gaze at a younger girl and the dead body found in the field at the very beginning creates a dangerous image in our minds that this discovery and this man's observing of certain things will only lead to later disaster. Without wanting to give too much away, the film breaks off after its catalyst and draws on themes from 2002's Irréversible, as a film displaying the shocking repercussions individuals realise they are capable of when someone they dearly love is harmed. The film is very briefly a look at raw human emotion as the distinct love for someone boils up with anger and hatred at the person responsible for her harm. A person's limits are tested; what they're prepared to do is pushed and, like Irréversible, it culminates in the murder of someone.

Running along-side this tangent is a young local policeman named Tomás (Romero), the same individual who happens to stumble across the potholers and their dead body scenario. His crime within this observant world of sin and evil born out of evil is greed. While initially aiding the innocents caught in the web, in a sort of role reminiscent of Pulp Fiction's clean up man 'The Wolf', the young policeman very quickly becomes aware that he is able to turn these seemingly innocent people in, but will not for a large price. Finally, the film calls on the Coen brothers' masterpiece Fargo when Amadeo (Bugallo), an aging and steady headed police man, is forced into putting all the corruption and wrongdoing together alá the character of Marge Gunderson in said film.

I do think The Night of the Sunflowers is genuinely a good film; a film that looks at fate and the evil born out of evil and how certain events and emotions can bring mankind down a level at times of desperation. Sunflowers, as a plant, can keep on growing up and up, spiralling out of control. If this is the 'night of the sunflowers', then it is a time during which scenarios can rapidly grow out of control. Only, it is the human beings in the film that adopt the role of the sunflowers as their emotions and inner-greed aid in the progression of evil and wrong-doing.

This movie is outstanding. The non-linear plot reveals itself little by little taking you by surprise at every turn. It all begins with a rape which already happened a day or two ago. The body is found in the middle of a field of sunflowers. All of this, we get it second hand from TV newscasts while the main characters carry on with their ordinary lives somewhere else. We -the viewers- are lead to follow a caver about to explore a virgin cave near a remote village, his girlfriend, two old disgruntled neighbors on an abandoned village who can't stand each other, a salesman, the disloyal police officer, ... We get to see every character from various viewpoints and how somehow their lives are connected without them knowing yet...

And then tragedy and human resolve -call it selfishness or greed- take over everybody's action.

The pace of revelation and the acting work like clockworks. This could happen, this is (s)pain after all.

Watch out for this guy -the director- for this is his first and for sure it won't be his last.

This is way up there with the best thrillers, like France's recent 'Tell No One'. It has the moody, brooding atmosphere of Jules Dassin's old classic '10:30 PM Summer'. Who is Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo? Is it true this is his first feature film? How can he be such a master from 'birth'? He wrote it as well. We are onto something here, a major international talent has appeared 'down there', and he is better than Pedro Almodovar in my opinion. When do we get the next one? It's enough to make you want to rush right out and eat some tapas, or something even more drastic than that perhaps. This is a wonderful study also of the clash of peasant and modern cultures. The acting is all flawlessly executed by a team of brilliant actors and actresses, but perhaps the best of all is an actor named Walter Vidarte, whose portrayal of 'Mad Amos' is as good as John Mills as the loonie in 'Ryans Daughter', and don't forget that won an Oscar. But all of these Spanish names are lost on me. I know who Miguel de Unamuno is, but not Carmelo Gomez, so there is not much to say but that they are all so good they must have a secret society in Spain called the Let's Make a Really Good Film and Not Tell Anybody Who We Are Society, whose members cleverly disguise themselves with strange Spanish names. They say Spain is part of mainstream European culture, but I don't believe it. But it is certainly now part of the top European film culture. More please. I might even start to remember some of the names if I could see them more than once.