When Aitor Gabilondo took the step of writing Patria for HBO, it could be interpreted as a step forward in his career after having suffered the consequences of creating, writing and producing on free-to-air television: series of excessive duration, insufficient budget and a bill bland visuals like The Prince or Live Without Permission but which achieved the goal of entertaining an audience still accustomed to that fictional model. It's not that I was convinced by the adaptation of Aramburu's novel, but it did not lack a sense of place (even with more than questionable linguistic criteria), of a time, and some excellent supporting performances, so I was curious to see El silencio, which this Friday premieres Netflix. It hinted that it was made to be enjoyed in a weekend, being a psychological thriller with Arón Piper, one of the undisputed stars generated by the platform after participating in Elite and The Disorder You Leave. But, instead of entertainment, what is found as a spectator is a void that, moving in its genre, seems to get bored until it reaches a provocative denouement.
Sergio Ciscar (Arón Piper), convicted of the murder of his parents when he was a minor, is released for good behavior. It is difficult to understand that someone buys this judicial resolution considering that, since he was arrested, the young man has not collaborated with the authorities, nor has he acknowledged his guilt in the double homicide, remaining strictly silent before the people whom he mistrust But there are reasons behind his release: a surveillance team has placed cameras in the murderer's house, in addition to monitoring his communications, to observe him and determine to what extent he is a dangerous person for society.
The premise of El silencio, therefore, has a ghost point due to the viewer's obligation to believe that investigation that violates any legality and endangers the public. But these security cameras make it possible to understand from the beginning that we are dealing with a suitable work, which does not necessarily aspire to be quality television but rather effective entertainment. In this sense, it is a fiction that goes to the face. The slip is that, once this situation is presented, the psychological thriller moves in fits and starts, unable to develop a hypnotic protagonist or keep the main mystery in suspense: what led Sergio to throw his parents off the balcony? How exactly did the events happen?
The development, in fact, is inconsistent. For example, the potential of Sergio's silence is deactivated when it is exposed that, in reality, he has spent years talking to the people who are convenient for him, keeping silent before the authorities or in situations that he prefers. When you hear it for the first time, it's almost like a betrayal of the main attraction of the series: having a killer whose motivations you don't know and who chooses not to communicate with the outside world. As the series wants to maintain the doubt about the goodness or evil of the protagonist, Arón Piper walks inexpressively through the series, without a defined plot beyond the mystery of his past motivations and surrounded by characters who are interpreted as a filler of a man of cloudy faith (Ramiro Blas) who offers him a job or the boyfriend (Manu Ríos) of a girl with whom he had corresponded in the juvenile center.
Even the obsession of the psychiatrist Ana Dussuel (Almudena Amor) with her object of study lacks naturalness and logic in its development, with a torrid scene that is embarrassing because it is unjustified, as if it had to be there because it is a psychological thriller. In part, again, the interpretative inexpressiveness can be understood: the script, so much that it wants to maintain doubts regarding the motivations, refuses to define the psychiatrist. How can the series sustain two cryptic characters about whom information is hidden until the last act when interesting alternative plots or a juicy game of suspicion are not proposed, and with actors who cannot develop their interpretations due to lack of transparency?
So, after episode after episode of long faces, arguments in the control room with characters as obnoxious as the supervisor played by Diego Luna, and clumsy pacing, El silencio offers a brave scene both for the way it was shot and for that. that says. However, as the construction of the story and the characters is so poor, dishonest and requires so many leaps of faith, the scene that should consolidate the creative commitment of the work ends up uncovering El silencio as an empty contraption that possibly only gave to a 90 minute movie.
