Netflix has just put online a Spanish police film, “Black Widow”, which looks back on a terrible news item occurred in 2017.
A intrigue based on real facts
The “True Crimes” are on the rise on Netflix and the platform hollows out a little more the venery with Black Widow, a feature film which is inspired by the case of Antonio Navarro Cedrán, found dead in a parking lot in Valencia in 2017.
This drama shocked all of Spain at the time, and even more when all the clues headed for his wife: the young and pretty widow turned out to be the brain of a sordid murder. This film, available on Netflix, returns to this story and is not content to relate the facts, but also probe the psyche of the characters involved.
Director Carlos SEDES-who signed episodes of the mini-series the Asunta affair which had worked well on Netflix-offers a narrative structure divided into three parts. Each allows you to immerse yourself in the minds of each protagonist, thus making history more immersive. A few lengths apart – the film lasts a little more than two hours – the process makes it possible to better understand the banality of a heinous crime.
A Berlin actor in a black widow
Little known on this side of the Pyrenees, Carmen Machi embodies the inspector in charge of the investigation. The sixties and a few decades of profession behind her, she does not allow herself to be fooled by the number of the ghost grove. She takes her investigations patiently and gradually tightens the noose around the suspect.
The latter is precisely interpreted by Ivana Baquero, revealed as a child by Guillermo del Toro in the Pan labyrinth. She therefore plays major, an inconsistent young woman who multiplies lovers and plans her husband's assassination as if she got rid of a bulky vulgar …
Netflix subscribers will have the pleasure of finding Tristán Ulloa, who was already in front of Carlos Sedes' camera in the Asumta case but was also part of the Berlin adventure, the prequelle series of Casa de Papel.
Manual Fernandez-Valdes/Netflix
He camps Salva, the colleague older by Maje who is manipulated like a puppet by the young woman. Like the other productions that can be seen from Netflix Spain, the film lacks a little nuances on the approach of the characters. We stay with archetypes, that of the femme fatale and the manipulated man.
But the film is distinguished by its use of sound. The protagonist audio recordings, who reveal her manipulations, are thinking of the first season of The Wire. We have fun seeing the reactions of the police who listen to the telephone conversations of this nun mante and the poor beasts who drink his words. In the end, a story without frills or sleeve effects.
Black widow currently on Netflix.
