Although the Spanish-French psychological thriller Like Wild Animals won a number of important film awards in 2023, it is considered an insider tip. Rodrigo Sorogoyen directed and staged the true story in a kind of modern Western. The documentary Santoalla, published in 2016, reports on the real events.
Today the thriller is also being shown in home cinema Blu-ray * and DVD *. In the extras you can watch the making of and various trailers, as well as offers Prime Video to purchase the film * at.
That’s what the psychological thriller Like Wild Animals is about
The married couple Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Olga (Marina Foïs) move from their French homeland to a remote, small mountain village in Spain. They are happy about a quiet everyday life, but living with the locals turns out to be difficult. Finally a dispute with the neighbors escalatesthe Anta brothers, who continues to raise tensions in the village until there is no turning back.
The psychological thriller wins important film awards
Like Wild Animals did quite well at the awards ceremony last year. As best foreign film He was awarded the French film prize César. He received Goya at the most important Spanish film award Nominations in 17 (!) categories, of which he won nine. The reviews are also very positive on average; the psychological thriller received a critic score of 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Like wild animals in the home theater
The true background of Like Wild Animals
The harried city dwellers romanticize the decelerated country life and the villagers feel left behind and long for progress. Like Wild Animals vividly and realistically describes the clash of two worlds. The focus is on a couple and their traumatic story based on true events.
As the Dutch couple When Margo Pool and Martin Verfondern moved to the Spanish mountain village of Santoalla do Monte in 1998, many of the approximately 50 houses had been in disrepair for decades. But the couple in their 40s didn’t mind, they had enough of the hectic life in Amsterdam and longed for peace and quiet. They didn’t find them.
Spoiler alert!
As in the film, over the years there was an escalating neighborhood dispute with the Rodriguez family, the only other residents of the village. They fought over cultural differences, over the use and rights of land, and misinterpreted each other’s intentions until In January 2010 Martin Verfondern disappeared without a trace, as the newspaper Le Monde reports.
It would take four years until his body was found and one of the Rodrígueze brothers was convicted of the murder. Margo Pool has lived in Santoalla for 26 years and is the only resident of the village. Giving up the dream of loneliness is out of the question for her. She belongs in the place where her husband rests and if she were to leave, those who had tried everything to drive her away would have won.
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