Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival
VERDICT: The inner life and fragmenting psyche of a secret police agent form the basis of Hugo Covarrubias’s exemplary and sinister stop-motion animation set during the Chilean military dictatorship
The protagonist of Hugo Covarrubias’s dark and disturbing stop-motion psychological drama, Bestia, may have a largely unmoving head made of porcelain, but she is based on a real person. Ingrid Olderöck was an agent of DINA, the secret police under the Chilean military dictatorship in the1970s. She earned herself the discomforting moniker ‘woman of the dogs’ as a result of her distressing torture techniques and Covarrubia’s film wrestles with the effect that actions like hers had on individuals and the nation.
Initially, the action is mundane and Ingrid – as we’ll refer to her, though she remains unnamed in the film – is seen playing fetch with her dog or silently making breakfast for the two of them before they leave the house and go to Ingrid’s job. What she does for work beyond going to a grey house and turning on a record player isn’t readily apparent, but as the action repeats, we catch a glimpse of a bound figure in a bare basement room and understand the music is a cover for screams.
The impact of Ingrid’s monotonous cruelty on her mental state begins to evidence itself in upsetting and violent dreams that come crashing unbidden into her waking life – at one point apparently tearing it asunder – and the knife in her kitchen trembles and spins as if under the control of terrifying telekinesis about to be unleashed. The full depravity of Ingrid’s actions is only hinted at, but the cumulative effect of the rhythmic editing is suitably chilling.
The meticulously detailed animation is beautiful to behold despite the subject matter, and the ingenious choice to cast Ingrid’s impassive face on unsettling doll-like porcelain serves both as a reminder about the banality of evil and, when the veneer literally cracks, an excavation of the lingering scars left by an era of cruelty.
Director, editor, cinematography: Hugo Covarrubias
Screenplay: Martín Erazo, Hugo Covarrubias
Producer: Tevo Díaz, Hugo Covarrubias
Production companies: Miyu Distribution (France)
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Short Film Program)
No dialogue
16 minutes
