Genre Country Director Actor

The Night of the Sunflowers

Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo, 2006

Star Review

This baroque, nicely intricate Spanish thriller ventures into the rural heartland previously occupied by Julio Medem (The Red Squirrel, Tierra) to stage an investigation of a crime akin to Rashomon or TV’s late, lamented Boomtown. After a prologue that establishes a teenage girl has been found murdered on the outskirts of a small community, six overlapping chapters shuffle between the perspectives of characters with bloody hands: a predatory salesman, a team of geologists, and two grumpy neighbours, keeping up a long-running feud before further tragedy strikes.

Arriving on DVD in the wake of this summer’s frankly depressing blockbuster season, writer-director Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo’s crafty concatenations of cause and effect should serve as a real tonic for anyone mourning the death of narrative cinema. Sensitive viewers be warned – we’re deep in hunting country here, so shotguns and animal traps feature prominently, often nastily – but there’s something reassuringly Columbo-esque in the way a wily veteran of the local police force comes to stitch together at least some of the loose ends of a clever, gripping plot.

Mike McCahill on 12th July 2007

View all 124 of Mike McCahill’s reviews

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