Written and directed by Diego Salomon, an evening among friends turns into an emotional battlefield when a couple’s tension leads everyone to question the strength of their bonds. Starring: Jósbel Lobo, Sofía Ciffoni, Andreina Crepsac and Oscar Belloso.
Diego Salomon makes interesting choices in the opening of The Batrachians, hitting a lot of unusual notes in the tone, leaving you unable to quite get a read on things. It’s a smart play, to set your curiosity to work and give you a little insight into the personas of the leading couple. It’s giving away a lot of nicely subtle hints of what’s to come. Then as it moves forward Salomon makes plenty of choices to ramp up the tension, while holding onto a strong intimacy. The visual style is very grounded and classic, giving the film a simple focus while its characters create the complexity.
There’s a lot of extremely relatable issues throughout The Batrachians but really it comes down to listening, respect and gender perspectives. It’s that quintessential argument of men seeing women as nagging but women, quite rightly, seeing it as their partner not doing the simple task that they asked of them. Then that’s often perpetuated by getting another couple involved, the writing does a good job of capturing the little frustrations that most couples face and the role that they play in the bigger picture. Although, the choices made in the ending give the story an unfinished feel, it drifts away from the main story and changes focus which is unsatisfying.
Each member of this small, closely knit cast does well to embrace the tension and find their own individual ways to throw extra obstacles into the mix. Jósbel Lobo creating the epicentre of their conflict as Mauro, he’s really interesting to watch as his behaviour features a lot of posturing and challenging. He has a self-involved edge to his personality, as well as a childishness but there’s also love and care hidden beneath his extroverted nature, simply in need of a touch more maturity.
Sofía Ciffoni is then the slowly building fire beneath the tension, there’s a lot of exasperation and tested patience within her performance. She’s bubbly yet grounded, she makes Lorena inherently sympathetic and alongside Lobo they do well to create that feel of the cracks appearing in their relationship. Whereas Andreina Crepsac and Oscar Belloso’s Adreina and David are much simpler, they’re quieter and try to keep the peace. Although the writing nicely peppers in plenty of their own issues as well, to keep things feeling true to life. There’s a sentimental feel to their connection, they’re a very affectionate, polite and sweet couple.
The Batrachians captures the gripes and grievances of being in a relationship. It delves into those quintessential issues and how small decisions can signify bigger problems or snowball into them. There’s a great cast at work who alongside the directorial style keep a close, intimate feel while creating a large amount of tension. Diego Salomon takes the everyday nature of this story and elevates it with some interesting choices, it’s only let down by its ending which feels fairly flat and doesn’t quite wrap things up as strongly as hoped.
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