26/06/2024 - The feature debut by Guillermo Polo is a trippy, colourful road movie, halfway between comic and US indie film, but at the same time just as Iberian as a Bigas Luna flick

The iconic bull-shaped billboard of Osborne brandy. Shabby-looking petrol stations on B roads. Camp sites with themed cabins. These are just some of the images and locations, teetering between fascination and hideousness, that serve as sets and settings for Devil Dog Road [+see also:
trailer
interview: Guillermo Polo
film profile], the feature debut by Valencian helmer Guillermo Polo, which opened the 39th edition of the Cinema Jove festival last Thursday, simultaneously competing in its official section.

This Hispanic road movie with immense visual potency criss-crosses Spain from Avilés to Benidorm to portray the Stations of the Cross – which are certainly not lacking in dark and sometimes cruel humour – that must be endured by Tristán (played by a highly committed Pablo Molinero), an aspiring novelist who ekes out a living writing cute little phrases on sugar-cube packets. But one day, he takes on a peculiar assignment: he has to take a dead body from the north of Spain to the beaches of the Mediterranean, where the deceased, who is none other than his own brother Simón (Isak Férriz), wished to be buried.

However, during this journey, plagued by catastrophic misfortunes, our antihero will be pursued by a female thug (Antonia San Juan), accompanied by her deranged father, and will encounter an insolent young woman addicted to hallucinogens (Mero González) – plus, a couple of police officers will also start tracking him.

Using this whole parade of outlandish characters, locations and situations, Polo has built up a film that, as he himself warned before one of the Cinema Jove screenings, does not take itself seriously. Thus, both the filmmaker and the movie itself appeal to our sense of facetiousness, incongruity and offbeat zaniness.

Admittedly, Devil Dog Road is not an arthouse or cosy drama, but rather an unhinged comic-book story, a movie with a huge dollop of (wild) life and colour that draws on US cinematic references such as Tarantino and the Coen brothers, as well as any road movie you’d like to pick (from True Romance to Thelma & Louise). It is also inspired by masters of Iberian slapstick comedy, such as Luis García Berlanga and Catalonian helmer Bigas Luna, who also shot his flick Golden Balls in Benidorm.

Highly dysfunctional families, dogs that steal amputated human limbs and a cheeky prankster of a ghost are some of the other ingredients of this crazy fiesta, sprinkled with dark humour, which invites us to live life to the max, to feed our inspiration and creativity via experiences and avoid wasting time, to hit the road of life at full speed and not leave to tomorrow what we could enjoy today. A fitting way to begin a festival steeped in a young, adventurous, festive spirit.

Devil Dog Road is a production by Los Hermanos Polo Films, Japonica Films, Volcano Films and Batiak Films. Begin Again Films will distribute it in Spanish theatres.

(Translated from Spanish)