Errementari

A blacksmith and a demon bond in Errementari

Paul Urkijo's Errementari, his premier feature, is a colorful fable of a struggle between a demon and a blacksmith in early 19th century Spain. The first film I've seen in the Basque language, Urkijo's supernatural narrative evokes Frankenstein, Faust, Beauty and the Beast and Pan's Labyrinth. Well shot, performed and constructed, Errementari is the best debut feature I've seen since Columbus.

Urkijo is greatly helped by the puckish performance of Eneko Sagardoy as the demon. This shape shifting devil steals the show as an imp who forms a strange bond with his tormentor, a stoic blacksmith. The fate of an orphan girl bonds the two and they forsake their eternal struggle for a greater goal. They have to go to the gates of hell to save the orphan, but the tone is entertainingly sly. Urkijo's film is a rejection of Catholic Manichaeism in favor of a more nuanced view of the balance of good and evil within us. An assured debut and one of the more underrated films of the last few years.