14/02/2012

Sleepless knights (Caballeros insomnes), first work by Germany’s Stefan Butzmühlen and Spain’s Cristina Diz, was screened today (February 13, 2012) in world premiere in the Forum section of the 62nd Berlin Film Festival.

The beginning of the film immediately sets the scene: a young man (or rather, a young body of a man, since he is naked) is stroking a horse in the half-light of a stable, on a sunny late summer’s day. We are in Estremadura, a Spanish region not often visited by international cinema, in a small village where Carlos (the young man from the first scene, played by Raul Godoy) has come back to help his father, whose worsening senile dementia prevents him from taking care of his herd.

Despite being at home, Carlos seems a stranger: he is in fact coming back from Madrid, which he left after having lost his job and he is totally estranged from everything that surrounds him, both in appearance and mentality.

Life in the provinces proceeds according to the rituals common to southern Europe: processions for patron saints, ballroom dancing for the older generation and evenings in the area’s only bar for the younger, family lunches on the patio with the chattering and gossip of the village.

While the TV runs images of the capital and the protests against the banking system and unemployment, Carlo’s obvious unease seems to be temporarily lifted by Juan (Jaime Pedruelo), a young policeman with whom he shares an alien appearance and beauty, and with whom, after a few skirmishes, he forms a relationship.

In parallel to the love story, which we immediately sense is fragile and destined for brevity, the directors create a kind of knightly counter alter: while on the one hand the young men try to define themselves and to find their place in their world, on the other hand the older generation left in the village play, with an unreal seriousness, the role of ancient knights of the castle which dominates the valley, dressed in (bits of) armour.

From now on, the parallel levels lose any logical connection: Carlos and Juan are increasingly more tortured, the old men dressed as knights perform ever more Don Quixotian actions, full of an absurd, melancholy joy, while the village continues to fill the time with the usual habits and the line of communication between everyone thins out.

As the story progresses, the directors’ limitations and naivety emerge, as for example the decision to use non-professional actors and leaving them free to tell their own stories within the film space or to concentrate on single scenes of strong visual impact but with little connection to the rest, with a hesitant ending which leads the film to resemble a collection of patched-up random themes.

The beautiful photography with warm tones, in which the earth’s ochre and red dominate the chromatic palette, is the best part of the film despite some tendencies towards picture postcard setting.

The film, made by a Spanish / German crew is co-produced by Butzmühlen and Diz and Salzgeber & Co. Medien GmbH (Germany).

(Translated from Italian)