The Night of the Sunflowers DVD, 2006

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
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