Film No. 31 (2016) La Playa De Los Ahogados (Death of a Fisherman) May 10th.

Film No. 31 (2016) May 10th.  6.30 PM LUNA Paradiso, Northbridge. 

"One misty dawn, in a quiet fishing port in northwest Spain, the body of a sailor washes up in the harbour." (The english promotional prelude to La Playa De Los Ahogados displayed outside a Perth cinema).

I was interested to learn that the translation to English of the title of this Spanish crime drama is The Beach of the Drowned and yet the film is advertised as The Death of a Fisherman in the Australian festival booklet of 2016. I mention this observation because the original English translation seems so much more intriguing as a title, I wonder why there was ever a re-interpretation. 

Meanwhile back in the fishing village of Galicia the body of a fisherman has washed up on the shore. Soon we are led through the mystery and intrigue of what secrets have been held in this quiet village by the charismatic Leo Caldas, the local detective. A man who knows the locals but has a lot to learn about an incident which occurred on the seas out from the village some years past.

The story is well told. We are intrigued as the mystery unfolds layer by layer, never losing momentum as the twists and turns are revealed then unraveled. Cinematic crime stories are so often competing against each other for a wider audience that they resort to shock and gore tactics to secure our attention. La Playa gently leads us along a plank of gentle story telling with just a touch of spiritual intrigue and a smattering of bad people.

The Death of a Fisherman could easily have been a pilot for a neat T.V. series,( You know the series I'm talking about. Each story is packaged around a likable detective living in his native village where crimes, usually murders, are committed weekly, each with its own twists and eccentric characters) maybe it was. I'm not familiar with the Spanish film and T.V. industry but I'm glad I had time for The Beach of the Drowned. Well that's what I'm calling it.  9GUMS.