Nest (Argentina-Italy/2021). Direction: Mattia Temponi. Screenplay: Gabriele Gallom, Mattia Puleo and Mattia Temponi. Photography: Stefano Paradiso. Editing: Marco Guelfi. Music: Julián Vat. Cast: Luciano Cáceres, Blu Yoshimi. Rating: Suitable for ages 13+ with reservations. Distributor: 3C Films. Duration: 92 minutes. My opinion: good.
With the recent premiere of the HBO series The Last of Us, it was revealed how fictions anchored in zombie invasions can, through a variety of formats and styles, give a twist to a premise that is repeated, but whose development fluctuates from time to time. according to the look The nest, the directorial debut Mattia Temponi, proposes a limited approach to a pandemic in which the infected do not move in groups or swarm in an apocalyptic metropolis. On the contrary, the filmmaker narrows the focus with a minimalist film (no less terrifying) in which Sara (Blu Yoshimi), an infected young woman, is rescued by a volunteer, Iván (Luciano Cáceres), who shelters her in that “ nest”, the name given to the places to comply with an indefinite quarantine.
Temponi's film, with an austere staging -the action takes place in that only closed space- and two protagonists who forge a bond despite the limitations, achieves a suffocating climate, especially when he approaches Sara with a contemplative look. of her suffering. At this point, the feature film recalls the coronavirus pandemic and its details (symptoms, phases, and forms of care are repeatedly mentioned) and seeks to contrast positions. On the one hand, the young woman questions the reason why she contracted the virus. On the other hand, the volunteer alludes to immigration as a cause of its dissemination, which leads to an interesting back and forth between two protagonists who approach positions.
When Nest moves away from those exchanges and includes a third act with hits of effects not entirely cohesive with the tone it had been handling, it loses strength. In any case, it is positioned as an original reinterpretation of what the division of worlds implies when panic breaks out and there is no way out in sight.