BFI London Film Festival: The Untamed

BFI Film Festival: 245 features. 74 countries. 15 cinemas. 12 days. One Festival.

How does one begin to describe a film about which the less you know the better? So strange and unexpected is Amat Escalante’s follow up to his critically lauded Cannes winner Heli that even the most straightforward synopsis might be considered a spoiler. So let’s keep this one vague. Part social drama, part Lovecraftian science fiction, the film opens in the opaque Mexican lowlands. We meet Veronica, a dispossessed young woman with a curious addiction. When an injury leads her to the local hospital, she encounters Fabian, a nurse who carries a big secret. Meanwhile Fabian’s sister Alejandra is facing her own crisis, seemingly trapped in a loveless marriage. Could Veronica offer the pair an otherworldly alternative to their problems?

Think Under The Skin reimagined by Carlos Reygadas, but that only hints at the unorthodox wonders on offer here. This wildly vivid, profoundly accomplished curio is a bona fide one of a kind.

(Notes by Michael Blyth)

The Untamed (La región salvaje), dir. Amat Escalante, Mexico/Denmark/France 2016, 100 mins.

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