This film was confusingly re-titled The Candidate for its limited UK release in August 2019. LIFF director Chris Fell introduced the screening, explaining that the film was screened as one of the three nominations for the LUX European Film Award. We received some LUX information and Chris reminded us that one of the other two nominees, God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya (North Macedonia 2019) had already been screened twice in the festival – and had been recommended to me.
The Realm begins with what seems to be a Goodfellas steal. A man in a suit walks off a beach into the kitchen of a restaurant, picks up a plate of ‘red shrimp’ and carries it through to a table in a private room in the restaurant. The camera races along behind this swiftly moving character and when he sits down to eat it swings around the other diners and then rapidly cuts between them. They are all talking nineteen to the dozen and at one point mocking a politician on the large TV screen on the wall, all the while stuffing themselves with expensive food and drink. The combination of camerawork, dialogue and performance makes watching this opening scene a dizzying experience as the subtitles fly past. As a Spanish-speaking friend observed, even he found it hard to follow.
It took me perhaps the first half an hour of a 2 hour plus film to fully realise what was happening. The restaurant group includes politicians and various investors/developers who have all been part of a scheme to profit from European Union monies which has been illegally used in rezoning land to sell to developers. Corruption in local/regional government has made these people very rich. The central character is Manuel (‘Manu’), a self-made man who after 15 years has risen to a position where he expects to be nominated as a ‘Regional Vice-President’ of his party on the way to a national profile. As played by Antonio de la Torre, Manu is a short man with an energetic and aggressive attitude, There is an element of what in the UK would be a ‘chip on his shoulder’, a feeling that because he didn’t complete his degree, some of his colleagues might look down on him. He has also ‘married up’ as his wife reminds him. Inés (Mónica López) is taller than her husband. He reminded me of a kind of caricature Football League manager or certain kinds of Tory politician – the Spanish political party is not named and neither is the region though Andalucia seems a good bet. Valencia is also listed as a location.
Manu’s insecurity is important because as soon as somebody ‘talks’ to the police about the corruption, his world begins to collapse and he soon realises that there are very few people he can trust. The film’s strength is the way in which director Rodrigo Sorogyen (who also co-wrote the film with regular writing partner Isabel Peña) gradually forces us to identify with this repulsive man and to become complicit in the corruption as he fights back against both his colleagues and potentially the even bigger beasts in Madrid. This is clearly the point of the film which ends with a speech by a TV journalist. The speech (and the whole TV studio scenario) reminded me in some ways of the famous tirade by Peter Finch at the end of Network (US 1976), not so much because of the content of that speech but more the sense that broadcast media is part of the same capitalist conspiracy. I can’t really discuss what is actually said without spoiling the thriller element of the film and the last half an hour is certainly thrilling.
In an interview for Cineuropa, Sorgyen and Peña suggest that rather than provocatively suggesting corruption might happen, they were instead responding to what Spanish citizens were already discussing: “we took the risk of talking about this issue because society is more and more ready for it”.
I should watch the film again and try to decipher the opening. The performances, the use of locations and the camerawork are fabulous. The techno score which many people seem to love nearly drove me insane. Perhaps I’m just past it music-wise but it seemed unnecessary – the film was exciting enough without the overkill. The UK distributor for the film, Signature Entertainment, put it into a single cinema on August 2nd and took £1,065 over the weekend. The DVD and Digital download were released on the same day. I don’t think Signature have much experience of foreign language titles, most of the films on their website look like genre fare with occasional American indies and several English-language European films. Most releases follow this cross platform release pattern. Why wasn’t this film picked up by a specialist arthouse distributor?
After the screening somebody suggested that it was like watching “Borgen on speed”. I can see that and in fact this kind of political/business thriller fuelled a couple of series of the Danish serial Follow the Money and the structure and mix of elements does feel a bit like a Scandinavian drama. It seems it should be on digital download so I suggest you search on streaming services checking all three versions of the title to find it. A strong cup of coffee to make sure you are caffeinated for the opening 30 minutes is advised.
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