‘Last Night I Conquered The City Of Thebes’ review: Intriguing Spanish debut explores platonic male intimacy

Dir: Gabriel Azorín. Spain/Portugal. 2024. 112mins

Historic Roman baths in Galicia, Spain, are the weird setting of Final Evening I Conquered The Metropolis Of Thebes, the intriguing function debut from Spanish filmmaker Gabriel Azorín. Within the current day, two younger males take a shower in thermal water in stone tubs which might be 2000 years previous and lay naked their hearts. After which one thing magical occurs, because the steam offers strategy to a really comparable scene set in Roman occasions, wherein one other two males have a deep dialog about their fears and emotions.

A powerful calling card for Azorín

With each a documentary factor – by way of its setting – in addition to scripted dialogue, Final Evening I Conquered The Metropolis Of Thebes affords a powerful calling card for Azorín, regardless that it’s not fairly a house run. Additional competition curiosity is probably going following its Venice premiere and subsequent berths in New York and Thessaloniki.

The opening follows a small group of male adolescents as they make their method by way of the woods to reach on the thermal baths, that are a part of an unlimited Roman army settlement that’s submerged by a synthetic lake for a part of the yr (although not once they arrive). A few of the younger males are from close by Portugal whereas some are locals, although the Galician language is shut sufficient to Portuguese that they will converse with none problem. The spotlight of the early going is an awe-inspiring drone shot that follows them as they arrive on the Roman ruins, highlightsing simply how monumental the Bande archeological website actually is. 

The kids’ banter, which takes up roughly the primary 30 or so minutes, doesn’t appear very consequential as they discuss video video games wherein they play as warriors, and there isn’t a lot else by way of character growth or plot. However Azorín shifts gears when the younger males get into the waters and the movie narrows its focus, concentrating on a dialog between the open-faced Antonio (Santiago Mateus) and the darkly brooding Jota (Antonio Martim Gouveia).

Antonio does a lot of the speaking right here and Mateus actually shines in what primarily turns into a minutes-long soliloquy about how he has all the time seemed as much as Jota as a sort of older brother however how he now feels that Jota, who has gone off to the massive metropolis to check drugs, isn’t dwelling as much as his personal requirements and is slowly turning into his dad and mom. Azorín has stated that he needed to make a movie wherein males would discuss their innermost emotions and this very lengthy monologue — writing credit are shared between Azorín and Celso Giménez — successfully crystallises this concept, all the dialog taking place in a single breathless take.  

This set-up is actually repeated however roughly two millennia earlier as the 2 Twenty first-century males are changed by brothers-in-arms Aurelius (Oussama Asfaraah) and Pompey (Pavle Cemerikic), with the previous wanting to abandon the Roman military and the latter not totally positive it is a good thought. However their dialog isn’t fairly as emotionally satisfying as Antonio’s cri de coeur, whereas a way of deja vu begins to set in regardless of the 2 thousand-year hole between the conversations. 

For documentary authenticity, the heart-to-heart of the washing Romans performs out in Latin, inevitably bringing to thoughts Derek Jarman’s homoerotic masterpiece Sebastiane, additionally in regards to the onerous lifetime of Latin-speaking Roman troopers. Nonetheless, Final Evening I Conquered The Metropolis Of Thebes appears extra concerned with questions of male friendship, male function fashions and emotional transparency in discussions between males relatively than in something remotely queer.  

The 2 conversations run lengthy and deep and are actually the 2 setpieces, with the encircling materials feeling much less necessary. Nonetheless, Azorín has made an enchanting function, set in an uncommon and really picturesque location that successfully tackles the hardly ever seen topic of platonic male intimacy.