WHEN ANGELS SLEEP CUANDO LOS ANGELES DUERMANO

Spain, 2018, 91 minutes, Colour.

Julian Villagran, Marian Alvarez, Ester Exposito, Asia Ortega.

Directed by Gonzalo Bendalo.

Indications to when angels sleep, it is night. Here is a drama, the main action taking place overnight.

The central focus is a middle-aged man, husband and father, involved in insurance and deals. He is several hundred kilometres away from home when his wife insists that he get back for their daughter’s birthday party. He leaves late because a deal is being made.

The main part of the film is his drive home during the night, initially difficult because a four-wheel-drive has bashed into his front flight and driven off. And, he is tired, veering erratically on the road and pulled up by the police who insist that he spent the night at a motel. He decides to move on.

In the meantime, we have been introduced to a rebellious young 17-year-old, defying her parents, going out with her girlfriend, in a car with two young men, and her resisting their sexual advances, going off with a friend and wandering the highway.

The drowsy man hits the girl on the highway, getting out, trying to revive her, to get her to the hospital, making phone calls but possibilities for calls limited in this part of the forest. And then he encounters the friend who had gone into the scrub but then emerged, accusing the man, fearful of being attacked, some violence between the two, his trying to reassure her, eventually her running away, taking refuge, his pursuing, turning violent and desperately killing her.

In the meantime, there are phone calls from his wife, talking to his daughter, and his jealousy of the neighbour intruding in their house.

Ultimately, disposing of the bodies, he does get home. Whatever audience sympathy there was for him, it evaporates when he is so desperately brutal killing the young woman.

In a moral twist at the end, he is celebrating with his little girl, the police think that he was drowsy and that he just hit an animal and panicked, and, discovering the two young boyfriends, have arrested them for the girls’ murders.

1. Title? The action taking place at night? The dark, the country roads, the forests?
2. The overnight setting, the initial meetings at the offices, the children’s party, the wife and child and neighbour and the phone calls, German and his uncles, departure, the drive?
3. The plausibility of the situation? This businessman, ambitious, criticisms from fellow workers, pressure of agreements and deals, is missing his daughter’s birthday party, his wife’s phone calls and insistence, her taunts, the presence of the neighbour, the four-wheel-drive is light, sleepy on the road, the police, the interrogation, to the motel, his deciding to drive, drowsy, the accident, going back, finding Gloria on the road, the phone call for the ambulance, putting her in the car, the encounter with Sylvia, Sylvia aggressive? His phone calls with his wife? Talking to his daughter? The presence of the neighbour? The change of attitude, driving, lost, mobile phones not working, Sylvia and her aggression, talking, the buildup to physical violence, her escape, the pursuit, in the heart, in the water, his attempts to kill her, finally drowning her? Putting Gloria’s body in the water? The effect on him?
4. The introduction to Sylvia at home, the clash with her parents, meeting Gloria, her refusal of sex, leaving, on the Road, the accident, her reaction, suspicions, fears, clashing with a German, the escapes, the pursuits, the attempted strangling, his drowning her?
5. German at home, with wife and daughter, everything seeming normal? The daughter and her present?
6. The authorities, the report about hitting the dog, thinking German was erratic, leaving the case?
7. The finding of the bodies, the arresting of the young men, the plausibility of their guilt?
8. German, his future, relationship with his wife, living with what he had done, the discovery of his innate aggression and fear?