Spanish actor Raul Arevalo’s (“Marshland”) directorial debut
The Fury of a Patient Man is a lean revenge thriller. The familiarity of its
story line could be traced back to 70s thrillers. It shows masculinity at its
worse, as a seemingly calm person loses himself to fiery temper, provoked by an
injustice act. Yet, Raul Arevalo’s movie has a distinct quality attached to it.
Shot in 16mm, the film uses skillful, urgent hand-held camera movements which
passes off the documentary feel as well as a simmering intensity waiting to
blow up. Shot amidst run-down, vibrant spaces of working class neighborhood (in
Madrid outskirts) with complicated characters, the narrative doesn’t follow a
strict genre model. This quality is what makes The Fury of a Patient Man a far
better film than what it plot-line suggests. It seems to be about real people,
grounded to real place that’s as arid as the landscape of old west (the film’s
Spanish title ‘Tarde para la ira’ translates to ‘little late for anger’ which
slightly has a vengeance-laden Western movie feel to it).
The film opens with a shaky staging that takes place inside
a car. The get-away car driver Curro (Luis Callejo) is waiting for the masked
men robbing a jewelry store. Chaos ensues. Three of the robbers escape, while a
resulting police pursuit brings down Curro. In the next few minutes, we witness
four brief chapters titled ‘Bar’, ‘Family, ‘Ana’, and ‘Curro’. These are more
like introductory passages to divulge the mysterious presence of stoic stranger
Jose (Antonio de la Torre). When we first see Jose he speedily walks into
crowded bar run by newfound neighborhood friend Juanjo (Raul Jimenez). Jose’s
brief, side-ward glances at Juanjo’s sister Ana (Ruth Diaz) may be due to his
unspoken affection or it may have far sinister reason. He attends Juanjo’s
family parties and probes Ana's feelings in chat-rooms, questioning about the possible domestic
abuse.
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| Jose (Luis Callejo) carefully carries out his revenge plot by getting closer to lonely Ana (Ruth Diaz) |
Ana turns out to be hardheaded Curro’s wife. During the
visit to prison, the couple were given privacy to have sex and one such visit has left Ana with a small boy.
It’s been eight year since Curro’s imprisonment (for the jewellery store
robbery) and he is about to get released in a week or so. Jose after his visits
to the bar spends time at a private hospital, sitting close to a comatose old
man’s bed. Circumstances make the emotionally bruised Ana and Jose to act upon their
carnal desires. When Jose plays the CCTV footage of a store robbery everything
becomes clear. In the footage, an old man and a woman is attacked by the masked
robbers. The young woman is brutally beaten, reducing her face to a bloody
pulp. Soon after Curro’s release, Jose decides to use Ana as leverage to
fulfill his call for the bloody revenge.
Director Raul Arevalo and his co-writer David Pulido
recently won Spanish film academy’s Goya Awards (for best directorial debut and
screenplay). The duo certainly deserves such awards for the way they deploy the
simple plot with great confidence. Arevalo’s intuitive director perfectly
balances elements of restraint drama and violent stylistic excess. Although the
dialogues at times seem banal, Arevalo and cinematographer Arnau Valls' tight
frames conveys the full range of impulsive, hysterical moments. In the tense
scene that unfolds in the basement of a gym, rage seethes in the visuals
waiting to snap at any moment. May be its too early in Arevalo’s directorial
career to throw in the legendary names of Sam Peckinpah or John Ford. But the
director who confides that he didn’t professionally study about film-making, is skillful enough to know how to study rugged faces or the grimy landscapes. The
build-up to the violence and the ugliness of it very much reminds us of
Peckinpah’s masterful staging (in The Wild Bunch, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo
Garcia, etc). While the urban landscapes of Madrid alternately instills
liveliness and claustrophobia, the frames of vast rural landscapes in the
second-half looks astounding. Arevalo goes for some well-judged long shots,
capturing both the gorgeous as well as wretched nature of the area, which kind
of reflects in the behavior of characters.
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| Curro confronts Jose, unaware of the brutality and violence he's about to witness |
David Pulido and Arevalo superbly reverse the character
nature of Curro and Jose in the movie’s second half. Curro is more terrified;
whereas Jose remains casually brutal (de la Torre is terrific as the friendly
guy whose wrath gradually rises to the surface). Their pursuit for the main
culprits results to high-wire sequences. We expect the criminals to be doing
business in a dark den with tattoos covering their body. However, these scenes
unfold under bright sunlight with these guys looking as simple as ourselves.
This makes the ensuing violence a little hard to digest and even halts us from
fully taking Jose’s side. ‘Revenge’ as they say ‘is a dish best served cold’.
The narrative stands as a fine contradiction to this statement. The biggest
strength of the script is that it doesn’t judge anybody. Arevalo is more
interested in studying one person, driven by momentary impulse and another
person, driven by festering hate and rage. They are not brought under a strict
moral framework. There’s not a single direct frame that shows murder taking
place on-screen. Yet, similar to the characters we aren’t able to shake off the
stifling presence of violence in the atmosphere. Like all the best revenge
dramas, this film too dwells on the bigger void after exacting vengeance. For
fans of thriller genre, the final revelation may seem to be predictable twist.
But I feel that there are no twists in this tale. It’s just one man’s
inevitable, destructive journey towards the hell.
Debutant film-maker Raul Arevalo’s The Fury of a Patient
Man (92 minutes) takes a conventional story-line and through resourceful
direction restructures it into a gritty and engaging thriller. It’s
surprisingly rooted deep into the intense atmosphere and characters.
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