Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Best movie of this year hands down!

A Masterpiece!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

So many unnecessary characters and scenes in a film that runs out of steam before the finish-line. Also, it seems the director has a childish fascination with silly drone shots...Again unnecessary. This film was trying to make so many points that it ended-up making none. Watching this became tiresome after the first 15 minutes.

Marshland is a beautiful thriller set in Andalucía, Spain. There is a fantastic dynamic between the two leading men, Juan and Pedro, played by Javier Gutiérrez and Raúl Arévalo respectively. But the main credit needs to go to Alex Catalán and Alberto Rodríguez for the fantastic cinematography and direction. The aerial shots in particular are truly stunning.The Franco legacy very much lingers throughout the film and this adds to the lingering tension and suspense that remains constant throughout. The story is a straightforward one but the look of the film will stay long in the memory.

I think "Marshland" is a very good film and I do recommend it...but not unequivocally. This is because this Spanish film is very well done but it's also quite brutal to watch with several ultra- realistic looking dead naked bodies...bodies that had been brutalized. In many ways, it's like watching an episode of the TV show "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" where you get to see everything...and that's something many of you don't want to necessarily see. You'll have to decide for yourself if you're up to seeing the film and if you are, it just recently came to Netflix here in the States.If you do watch the film, it wouldn't hurt if you know about recent Spanish history. It's set back in 1980...not long after the repressive Franco regime had been replaced with a democratically elected government. In Franco's day, the police could be more brutal and civil rights weren't nearly as important for the people they suspected. Because of this history, one of these veteran cops periodically shows a very brutal side....and witnesses who hold back are likely to get a rather serious beating--even uncooperative old ladies! So what are these cops investigating and why does one of them think it's worth delivering a butt kicking here and there?! In a small town in the marshland, a couple young ladies have disappeared...and at first it's just a missing person case. But when they are eventually found dismembered and there might be other killings, things get very serious. So serious that at one point in the film, even the local drug lord tries to help the police! The acting in this film is definitely underplayed...most likely to make the flashes of brutality all the more jarring. Now this is not to say that the film is slow or bad in any way...just deliberately paced and with music that definitely helps to set this somber, brooding mood. This helps build tension during the course of the story. My only real complaints are about the corpse scenes...as they are intense. Still, the film is so well made that I'm a bit surprised that I didn't see it listed today among the Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Picture.

La isla mínima (known as Marshland to the Anglophones) at the surface resembles countless other crime films and stories. Two cops with very different personalities are summoned to an unfamiliar place in order to solve a crime and in the process they uncover dark secrets that lie under the small community. What makes the difference in this film however is how the filmmakers make use of the setting. The movie takes place in Spain during the Spanish transition to democracy some years after Franco's death.The two protagonists represent the different stances and political backgrounds. Pedro is an uptight cop with democratic convictions eager for the extinction of fascism in his country who is partnered with Juan an experienced cop who in this movie acts as a representative of Franco's regime. The two of them are called to investigation two missing girls in the Spanish countryside and to put aside their political differences.As a whodunit Marshland is a gripping and suspenseful movie with fine cinematography and the central mystery even though kinda formulaic preserves the viewer's interest till the finale. But at the relationship between the two leads and how this resonates with the political landscape of the 1980's Spain is where the central core of this story resides. For example Pedro, as the investigation progresses, comes at terms with the undemocratic and violent methods of Juan and makes compromises with his beliefs in order to solve a case which will allow him to advance his career.All in all I highly recommend Marshland if you want to watch an entertaining and intelligent mystery which scathingly comments on a turbulent period of the Spanish history.