film directed by
Chema García IbarraActors:
a scene at school, where some little girls read their compositions and let the viewer know that the education is based on specific categories.
In the background, the TV is on and ¨Un nuevo amanecer¨ is advertised with great importance even if it´s not clear what it is.
Under the influence of television, El Malo (The Evil) is falsely identified as Romanians. No one sees a Romanian or hears one, but being the scapegoat in the area, all the evils with an unknown author are put on him.
The social dynamics unfold similarly to those in the story of Putois by Anatole France, a character who was blamed for any misdeed in the area.
The myth of the casual worker who is dirty and does all the bad things possible circulates throughout Europe and refers most of the time to a misconception, prejudices related to the novelty or in this case, to the traveler, the immigrant, the person in need, which is to be found
in traditional stories, books, films, music, and so on. Many if not majoritary societies have used it by force as a negative element.
(Who is your Bau bau, the scapegoat in your area?)
Confused and easy to manipulate people believe in who knows what aberrations and deliver their nieces to the bad guy in exchange of after-life promeses. In all this mix between extraterrestrial ideas and religious ideas the
Myth of Faustus makes its categorical presence as there are negotiations going on.
In these conditions, the problem solving related to the group goes totally wrong, touching the absurd and the grotesque. Group reactions are horror reactions and very dangerous.
Domestic violence is resolved by the demand for opinions of "powerful women", who can read in the magic globe, superimposed ideas, in an amalgam of susceptibility.
The media, in the background, spreads conspiratorial information, confusing the locals, who oscillate between good and bad, from whom to ask for help in solving problems.
All this happens in a society of workers, people with hard lives, tired and vulnerable.
The drama arises from the perspective of
sacrifice, which is carried out by mistake, in the illusion that there is some “superior being” more important than the child itself, and trying to do good or believing that they are doing so, people end up sacrificing their children, in exchange for strange ideas of “immortality”.
The girl, like any kid, does everything her uncle, her relative, tells her because he is "a trustworthy person."
The imaginary defendant
In a world full of superstitions, fear of
death and dreams of immortality infiltrated by the media, this influenced fear is based on group prejudices about "la gente del este", who are automatically blamed if something happens.
Justice is far away
Everyone desperately believes in what they can or
in everything. We are facing a world of generational dementia, where grandmothers seem to have mastered magic, while icons of saints occupy the walls, and La Virgen walks the streets, with great aplomb and everyone dreams of immortality.
The police investigate the drunks, therefore blaming the vulnerable people goes on in contemporary times, demonstrating once more that the Putois phenomenon is still active, even institutionalized.
The suspense is concentrated on this permanent scarry imaginary presence of the scapegoat: Eastern Europeans, Romanians although throughout the film no Romanians were seen.
It´s a reality where the clairvoyants, spiritual speakers, superstitions, metaphysics and religious ideas go all together, an easy to manipulate social groups, that are so absorbed by fictive ideas.
This film is a pure demonstration of how brainwashing works and the dangers of not observing what is around us and the silent horror of the reality of children in today's vulnerable world which is a chain of abuse.
has no special effects and needs none to be spectacular in addressing social themes that need to be addressed without further delay: spiritual scams, business scams and child abuse.
Destructive social effect
The little girl has more logic, and scientific vision than the adults who believe all the conspiracy stories and as a result endanger the lives of exactly those they were charged with protecting.
Society seems like a show of lies to hide unimaginable things and generational abuse of minors, while statues of virgins are traditionally walked down the street.
In the background, Los Sobraos do a magnificent cover of "Zombie" song from The Cranberries and sing it with all their power:
¨Their violence causes silence...
With screaming voices, clapping and quitar cordes touching, galloping shoes like the call to the immigrants and all the generations of travelers out there that were forced to leave their homes because of abuse, war and famine.
Espiritu Sagrado was registered as a sci-fi movie, but we don't even see a detail of a classic sci-fi film or scary monsters. Suspense is based on an imaginary negative character, a supposed villain, and all the fantastic ideas around a real problem, solved on an imaginary level.
The simple principles of good and bad are so socially confused that the director Chema García Ibarra can easily switch the good character into the bad one, just by adding an observer that was also excluded from society, the grandmother who has Alzheimer, but seems the only one understanding the situation and tries to protect her granddaughter.
It is reverse sci-fi or pseudo-sci-fi that highlights the fact that aliens do not exist, but humans suffer for all sorts of reasons and others profit from that suffering inventing monsters.
In such a context a little girl, the victim and a woman with Alzheimer's seem the most normal, yet their lives are coordinated by insane people. Once unable to protect their young's, the whole idea of family or social presence of any kind fails.
Protect the Kids, don’t sacrifice them.
In the international child trafficking network, Romanian children, girls in particular, are the ones trafficked because they come from vulnerable backgrounds and the state does nothing to protect them, as in other countries they find nothing but contempt, a chain of rejection on the one hand, a human trafficking chain on the other, leaving them with no chance.
I think the world picked the wrong scapegoat, but for sure the most vulnerable, the easiest to destroy because ideally, they won´t be able to fight back.
The movie switches roles, plays with the anti-héroe idea, with the good and bad principles, and serves a new plate of intense philosophical questions, based on a cruel reality that cannot be denied.
