Too Many Beasts review: Not a boar by any means, but has a bit of hammy to it.

introduction

Sometimes, at a film festival, you only have to watch movies, and that’s because movies are what you can see at those times. This is exactly what happened to me on the final day of this year’s Fantastic Festival in Austin, Texas. Sometimes movies will surprise you. too many beasts. You sat in the theater and realized that what you clearly needed in your life was a French drama about an outbreak of wild boars and how it affects the larger community.

outline

Sergeant Fulda Orsini is a military police officer recently reassigned from Corsica to rural France. He suffered a breakdown after a nasty breakup with his girlfriend, which led to him losing his captaincy and being shipped off to essentially oblivion. Police psychologist Stephanie Danjir was also reassigned to the same area for her own reasons. None of these people are necessarily suited to do their jobs. Both of them have short tempers and are not particularly good socially.

The rural areas they were assigned to were mainly rural areas surrounded by dense forests. There are quite a few wild boars living in that forest. Being from Texas, I know how annoying, disgusting, and scary wild boars can be. They are not just pigs. They are aggressive wild animals that can grow large enough to cause serious physical harm, and can be incredibly destructive to the surrounding land.

The villagers don’t like wild boars. Local hunting lodges, on the other hand, love it because that’s the game their customers come to hunt. The lodge also appears to have encouraged the introduction of larger wild boars into the area, causing extensive damage to local farmers’ crops. Needless to say, farmers and hunters don’t particularly like each other. One farmer, Brun, appears to have taken matters into his own hands and killed a hunter after wild boars destroyed his crops. Brun escaped into the woods and later became something of a rural myth.

argument

I really enjoyed writer-director Sarah Arnold’s films. A little crazy, maybe even completely crazy. Alexis Manenti as Orsini and Ella Rumpf as Danjir are great and have great chemistry together. Orsini is forced to attend a therapy session with Danzir, which at first does not go well, but eventually develops into a more friendly relationship.

Their conversations are both funny and surprisingly realistic. In the end, both admit that their previous problems have essentially relegated them to this place, working alongside a largely incompetent group of colleagues. Arnold does a particularly good job of the dialogue between them. It moves back and forth quickly without feeling forced. Their conversation feels natural even as the situations around them become increasingly ridiculous.

Manenti is great as Orsini. His brooding over his previous actions is a bit sad and at times actually quite comical to watch. He may be the smartest police officer in the area, but no one seems to notice or particularly want to acknowledge it. Orsini’s partner, Chaton, is reminiscent of Inspector Clouseau from the Pink Panther movies. He believes he is one of the best cops in the department, although he is sincere enough to be completely unaware of his own lack of police skills. His relationship with Orsini is also well written and consistently entertaining.

Additional analysis

But the incident itself is not that funny and becomes a statement about privilege. People who are already affluent still want more and better, regardless of how their actions affect the people or environment around them, as long as they get what they want. The farmers have every reason to be angry, and for all the absurdity of the situation, Arnold makes their frustration understandable..

The highlight of Too Many Beasts comes in the very entertaining third act, where Orsini and Danjir successfully solve the case during a hallucinatory experience in the forest. The entire sequence is incredibly strange. Despite their circumstances, they keep moving forward, surviving and succeeding almost in spite of themselves.

The movie was shot quite straightforwardly. There’s nothing particularly flashy about the camerawork, but it doesn’t have to be. The highlights here are the writing and acting. The story moves along at a good pace, the dialogue is genuine and funny, and the actors do a great job of making you care about these two somewhat unlikable people. The juxtaposition of these characters at their lowest point, with events revolving around one of the lowest and most destructive creatures imaginable, was not lost on me. Arnold did a great job finding both comedy and humanity in that idea.

conclusion

i liked too many beasts Much more than I expected. I seem to find it every year at Fantastic Fest. It was a French movie I almost didn’t know I would get into, but I found it to be a movie with lots of characters and a good story. Sometimes you have to take all the movies you can fit. Sometimes you get lucky.

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