Nocturna: La noche del hombre grande (director)
(studio)
107 (length)
18 January 2022 (released)
19 January 2022
This review was first published after Nocturna Side A was presented at London FrightFest 2021.
This film is not likely to split opinion per se more likely that viewers will take what resonates most with them. That isn’t unusual for a film however when dealing with aging and in particular the terrible effects of dementia it becomes much more personal if you have experience of it.
We find Ulises (Pepe Soriano) a very old man with a shopping list confused on his way home to his wife. Spotted by the super Daniel (Lautaro Delgado) he’s guided home told to use the stairs as the lift confuses him. Waiting for him is his bed ridden wife Dalia (Marilú Marini who is curt with little time for his ramblings. They barely leave the flat and they fear robbery having heard that there has been a spate of burglaries. Dalia also rails against those whom she suspects wants them out of the flat including their son.
The family is somewhat dysfunctional having problems with Carlos and completely lost touch with daughter Irene (Dalia won’t even hear her name.) after an incident that wrecked them. Over the course of a night Ulises confronts his past to come to terms with his future.
It’s very early on that the viewer will work out that Ulises is suffering from dementia; his confusion around the shopping list and around the flat. He appears to receive little sympathy from his wife bullied almost. It’s heart-breaking especially when he has moments of lucidity and when, in the more supernatural elements of the film, he returns to his boyhood his beloved mother (Marina Artigas) and when he courted Dalia as a young girl, childhood sweethearts.
From personal experience I know about these episodes and the pressure and distress, also the stubbornness and anger that sometimes erupt as we see with Ulises. Almost a two hander the central performances of Soriano and Marini are an exceptional Ulises faltering at almost every step with Dalia mired in anger and loathing.
As such the ghostly elements and the goings on with neighbour upstairs Elena (Desirée Salgueiro) are not quite on my radar though these do all come together neatly in the end. This thanks to Gonzalo Calzada’s superb script and exceptional use of camera angles depth perception, shadow and lighting capturing the mental and fantastic components of the film.
Nocturna: Side A - The Great Old Man's Night and Nocturna: Side B - Where the Elephants Go to Die are available as a double bill on DVD and Digital.
