Trote

In his first feature Xacio Baño opens up a disquieting dialogue between reason and instinct, humans and animals. Set against the backdrop of “Rapa das Bestas”, an age-old ritual in the Galician mountains which sees wild horses gathered together in the valley where they are sealed for identification as well as have their manes cropped, the film tells about tremors within a family after the death of one of its members. As the world looks different when in mourning it also becomes more difficult for the characters to look into each other’s eyes. The scars of someone missing are present in every image. It is a film in which framing and editing disconnect what could belong together. The absence of communication or love in a family that literarily seems to be out of place is striking. How to go on? Who belongs where? What to do? Like with the horses there is a willingness to escape but there is also a struggle that might lead into resignation. Baño proposes a tenderness and violence of touching as well as isolation in the work of mourning. One stands for life, the other for death. It is for the protagonist to find out what they prefer in order to accept helplessness in the face of death. (Patrick Holzapfel)

In the presence of Xacio Baño.