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.

I know that I am not a great fan of serial killers films. But there were great ones such as SEVEN of course, the best ever, and several other ones. But this one has nothing to remind of, nothing exceptional to remember. You have the unavoidable detectives duet and the rest is predictable, with the also unavoidable raining scenes, a cliché for serial killers films. No real surprise, if you have seen at least ten serial killer schemes in your life. I prefered THE PLAGUES OF BRESLAU, made in 2018. The only unusual thing is that it takes place at the beginning of the COVID plague, but is it useful to give quality to this flat movie? To enhance the interest to see it? I don't think so.

This film opens on day one of the Covid lockdown in Spain. A young woman who has been missing, presumed dead, for several months turns up in Infiesto, a small mining town in the Asturian Mountains. She is alive but not speaking. Police officers Inspector Samuel Garcia and his sergeant, Marta Castro are investigating her kidnapping. It soon becomes clear to them that this was more than an isolated kidnapping by a lone culprit. The more they discover the more disturbed they are and the disappearance of another girl gives them a sense of urgency.

I thought this was a solid enough crime thriller, perhaps not a must see but a decent enough addition to the genre. It starts well and the tension escalates nicely as we learn more about the crimes and the perpetrators. Having it set against the backdrop of the enforced lockdown wasn't really necessary but nor did it detract; having so few people about added to the atmosphere. The atmosphere was already pretty good due to the remote location and overcast or rainy weather. The central story isn't the most original but there is only so much one can do in a popular genre. The cast is solid, especially Isak Férriz and Iria del Río, who play Garcia and Castro respectively. Overall a decent enough film for fans of Euro-crime dramas.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

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.