MIFF NOTES: A Monster with a Thousand Heads (2015, Dir. Rodrigo Plá)

The Heinz Dilemma gets a taut cinematic treatment in Mexican thriller A Monster with a Thousand Heads. Director Rodrigo Plá and his screenwriting wife, Laura Santullo, who worked this up from her own novel, don't stray far from the scenario many would have worked through in their ethics classes: a woman is looking for medical treatment for her long suffering husband, she is faced with the decision of whether to break the law to secure her rightful payout from the insurance company who is corruptly withholding funds.

This being a pseudo-heist film, it is no surprise she takes matters into her own hands. What is a surprise is the deftness with which Plá and Santullo strip this thing back to its bare bones. They take a surprisingly controlled Jana Raluy and step her through a grounded series of events with nary a flashy edit or dramatic music cue in sight. The result is a believable scenario, one that is always under nervous control and all the more tense for it.

Raluy's performance and that of Sebastián Aguirre, who plays her unwittingly strung along son, play to the film's strengths, which is to say they both under-play. And supporting cast members, many of whom are given perceptible asides thanks to Santullo's sharply constructed narrative, all find the perfect balance between fear and unethical superiority.

Don't let the title deceive (the pair may have gone a little over the top with the whole "thousand heads" thing), this is no Erin Brockovich level exposé of Mexico's health insurance industry. It touches two or three heads and certainly intimates widespread corruption but it doesn't get lost in that sinkhole. Nor will it help you with where you place yourself on Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development; that's something you'll still need to work through if you're ever in this situation. A Monster with a Thousand Heads simply demonstrates how easy it is to cross the line.

An understated film but one of the pics of the fest so far.

★★★★

Trailer:

A Monster with a Thousand Heads screened as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.