The best horror movie of the year

PalmAfter the surprising double victory of the correct ones The 47 and The infiltratorThe 40th edition of the Goya Awards will take place without any mystery. Sundays It will prevail over the rest because it is the best film among the nominees. Director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa uses teenager Ainara's announcement of becoming a cloistered nun to dissect the underlying family dynamics that trigger her decision. The father is a widower more concerned with upholding the conventions of marriage than with meeting his daughters' emotional needs. He faces opposition from his sister, convinced that her niece is wasting her life.

Ruiz de Azúa's direction is austere, focused on enclosed spaces, so that the viewer feels the oppression of this quintessentially Basque bourgeois family, on the verge of exploding. What is surprising is that believers, agnostics, and atheists have connected with the film thanks to its presentation of facts rather than an ideological stance. It's not so much about equidistance as it is about allowing the viewer to complete the experience with their own perspective. For me, Sundays It's not a film about spirituality and God's call, but the story of a kidnapping: that of an institution in need of visibility and clear strategies to ensnare the most vulnerable. It's a story about a family (like so many others) suffocated by its traumas and about a manipulated young woman who believes she is destined to give her life to the Lord.

Meek and manipulative

My gaze detests the selfish and irresponsible father, the priest who undermines Ainara's will, and the meek and manipulative Mother Superior (a Goya Award is guaranteed for Nekane Aramburu), who plays the situation to her advantage. I'm constantly captivated by Aunt Maite (the impressive Patricia López Arnaiz), a progressive and modern cultural manager whose inconsistencies Ruiz de Azúa also points out. After the extraordinary series VolerThe director once again paints a nuanced, complex, mature, and uncomplicated portrait, free of simplistic moralizing. Ready to spark debate.

Sundays It's not a film about the awakening of faith, but the best horror film I've seen in a long time, a portrait of a young girl lost in the grief of her mother's death and desperately needing direction in life. God is here to give it to her. How terrifying. And what a great film, Alauda. This year, it won't take two to award an excellent one at the Goya Awards.