Talion (Martin Tuta, 2015) : Chile

Reviewed by Nathan Pécout. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, at the Metro 4 Theatre.

Talion is a Chilean thriller, the first feature film by director Martin Tuta, who also wrote the script. And for a first film, it is a success. The suspense is crafted with verve throughout the film, to reach a climax of tension that runs on the audience.

The very beginning sets the tone of the whole film : we are in a climate of tension. The first scene opens with a tracking shot that follows a woman : accompanied by the fast tempo of the music, she is hurrying on, walks fast, bumps into someone. Her conversation with her boss is strained. Shortly after she watches these unbearable videos of torture. Except for the following sequence of introduction, the film will stick to this atmosphere : uncomfortable, stressful, unhealthy. The abundance of close-up shots on various characters’ face (Amira (Viviana Rodriguez), a journalist and the main protagonist; Eduardo (Tiago Correa), her boyfriend; Amira’s boss; the police officers) shows us the constant tension on their features. And this is justified : the story deals with a sordid affair of pedophiles being tortured to make them pay for their equally sordid acts. The investigation that follows, lead by the police on one side and by Amira on the other, which will obviously lead to conflicts, is the reason of their stress. Through the film, the suspense constantly builds up and reaches its peak during that scene where Amira, in a supermarket, falls into a state of complete paranoia : every child she sees seems to be in danger and every man looks like a potential raper. The echoed sound and the wobbly frame enhance the feeling of discomfort that is communicatd to the spectator. From this moment, the paranoia is going to contaminate everybody : the policemen, one suspecting his colleague when he plays with his daughter while they are having dinner, Eduardo, and eventually, the audience. Everybody becomes suspect and suspicious. The tone of the film is really infectious, and this is one strong asset of Tuta’s film.

The mise-en-scène is relatively classic for a thriller : offices, crime scenes, journalists and police officers. But Tuta also borrows conventions from another genre, and he does it with a certain mastery : the torture scenes demonstrate an influence from horror movies. These scenes are set in a dirty, gloomy basement with sharp objects laying everywhere, the light becomes low-key and sets an explicit unhealthy mood this time. The torture was only suggested before, but now we are facing these rows of naked pedophiles, ready to be cut and mutilated.

Another efficient tool used by Martin Tuta is the non-linear narrative form. The pre-mentioned torture scenes are shown multiple times during the film, but are only set at the very end of the story. Flashbacks of children living in a house where all grown men seem threatening also jumble the story. Do those scenes happen at the same time than the central plot, or are they previous events that will affect the outcome of the story ? Only the final sequence gives all the answers and allows us to rebuild the whole puzzle. By doing this, Tuta emphasizes on the  permanence of the threat of both the pedophiles and the masked avenger.

Mixing two intrigues that centre on dreary events, director and writer Martin Tuta asks the question of good and evil : who is right ? And who is the bad guy ? Until where can one go to defy unfairness and impose his vision of justice ? The film gives us as many answers that it sets new questions.