El hoyo (2019)

Directed by: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia | 94 minutes | horror, science fiction | Actors: Ivan Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan, Emilio Buale, Alexandra Masangkay, Zihara Llana, Mario Pardo, Algis Arlauskas, Txubio Fernández de Jáuregui, Eric Goode, Óscar Oliver, Chema Trujillo, Miriam Martín, Gorka Miriam Martín. Martxante, Miren Gaztañaga, Braulio Cortés, Javier Mediavilla, Álvaro Orellana, Juan Dopico, Lian Xu Shao

The concept of the Spanish sci-fi horror film ‘El Hoyo’ is as bizarre as it is simple. In the near future, prisoners will be locked up 24/7 in a tower with more than 200 floors. Each floor is a cell, each cell contains two prisoners. There is a large square hole in the ceiling as well as in the bottom of each cell. Once a day a huge platform filled with food and drink descends into it. The prisoners are given a few minutes to eat, after which the platform continues to descend.

The logical consequence is that the prisoners on the upper floors can eat their fill, while on the lower floors they get hardly any food. At the end of each month, the prisoners are rendered unconscious, after which they are moved to another floor. Whether she gets to eat in the coming month then depends entirely on the floor on which they landed.

In ‘El Hoyo’ we follow one Goreng, an enigmatic man who voluntarily has himself locked up for six months. In those six months, he always ends up on different floors, he keeps getting new cellmates, and sometimes he has to fight to the death for a little bit of food. He also faces platform-lifting amazons, desperate jumpers and much more.

The concept of ‘El hoyo’ is actually enough for a winning film, but the makers have also developed the concept wonderfully. Despite the simple story, the film is full of inventive finds and unexpected twists. Outwardly, the film is both gray (the cells and the prisoners) and full of color (the fantastic food that keeps descending). In terms of tone, ‘El hoyo’ alternates raw and violent scenes with subtle, surprising scenes, full of stimulating dialogues and (reasonably) deep contemplation.

‘El hoyo’ wants to tell us something about the disinterest of wealthy people for their less wealthy congeners. Prosperous people sometimes forget that today’s winner is tomorrow’s loser. In addition, the film proves how important it is that a tragedy is actually seen. Just as a Syrian child washed ashore once opened our eyes to the Syrian reality, our hero Goreng tries to make something clear to the prison staff. Will he succeed? You really have to watch this movie for that. But you should anyway.