La Noche de los Girasoles, or The Night of the Sunflowers in English, is quite clearly a product of some of contemporary cinema's more recent efforts. The film takes inspiration from, and pays homage to, a number of quality offerings from around Europe and The United States from recent times, while delivering an experience that flicks from the slow burning and ominous to the fast paced and shocking. All this within the realm of a crime-fused world of noir. The film is a quite gripping tale about desperate people in a predicament they should not and do not deserve to be in. But the film adopts a multi-strand approach, although maintains its study of circulation rather well for good measure. The film won me over for its look at greed, retribution, corruption, honour, vigilantism and desperation on a couple of character fronts.The film can be best summed up by observing the opening twenty minutes and closing five. The same individual, whom the film opens and closes with, ambles through the world doing whatever depraved activity he is driven to do, but has no idea of the repercussions they entail. The attitude is a sort of nonchalant one; an attitude that disregards life and what devastation erupts in the wake of it. These emotions and ideas are ones that crop up at various points with a couple of people, most notably individuals to do with disguising a murder and accepting money on an immoral level. These events that are born out of a prior, negative catalyst are created and further spawn scenarios that could lead to further evil or wrong doing. The overall feeling is that evil spawns an event that could spawn further evil and that could spawn an event that might induce evil still. The underlying feeling is that this film looks at a butterfly effect born out of Pandora's Box being opened up.Some of the primary characters in the film are potholers and their task is to explore a recently found cave discovered within a rural Spanish community. This is where the overall iconography to do with the film's study enters the fray. Director Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo has his characters descend into this dank, grimy, cold, unknown and uncharted space. It's here I feel he draws on parallels with Spain as a nation. His film will be one that goes into Spain as a rural and 'unseen by the tourists' location, an unearthing and a real look at whatever cold and shallow activity, feeling and people lurk within. It is a look at a place no one else ever sees or has seen before. It is iconic of sorts that the location of the cave is used to hide the evidence that bring normal, abiding people down to the level of criminals. This supports the general theory that, if you look hard enough in the most natural and desolate of areas, you may well still be able to find wrongdoing.The film, a Spanish one that continues the recent ascent of cinema in that respective nation, begins with a lone male individual driving to a certain destination. The emphasis on his gaze at a younger girl and the dead body found in the field at the very beginning creates a dangerous image in our minds that this discovery and this man's observing of certain things will only lead to later disaster. Without wanting to give too much away, the film breaks off after its catalyst and draws on themes from 2002's Irréversible, as a film displaying the shocking repercussions individuals realise they are capable of when someone they dearly love is harmed. The film is very briefly a look at raw human emotion as the distinct love for someone boils up with anger and hatred at the person responsible for her harm. A person's limits are tested; what they're prepared to do is pushed and, like Irréversible, it culminates in the murder of someone.Running along-side this tangent is a young local policeman named Tomás (Romero), the same individual who happens to stumble across the potholers and their dead body scenario. His crime within this observant world of sin and evil born out of evil is greed. While initially aiding the innocents caught in the web, in a sort of role reminiscent of Pulp Fiction's clean up man 'The Wolf', the young policeman very quickly becomes aware that he is able to turn these seemingly innocent people in, but will not for a large price. Finally, the film calls on the Coen brothers' masterpiece Fargo when Amadeo (Bugallo), an aging and steady headed police man, is forced into putting all the corruption and wrongdoing together alá the character of Marge Gunderson in said film.I do think The Night of the Sunflowers is genuinely a good film; a film that looks at fate and the evil born out of evil and how certain events and emotions can bring mankind down a level at times of desperation. Sunflowers, as a plant, can keep on growing up and up, spiralling out of control. If this is the 'night of the sunflowers', then it is a time during which scenarios can rapidly grow out of control. Only, it is the human beings in the film that adopt the role of the sunflowers as their emotions and inner-greed aid in the progression of evil and wrong-doing.

"La noche de los girasoles" begins with a meeting by chance, between a rapist and murderer, and his next victim. The rapist will try to victimize a young woman, and who she is and where it all takes place play a decisive part in the violent events that will ensue.So this movie has several strong points. One of them is showing how someone completely unrelated to the rest of the main characters of the story, someone who meets one of those people (the young woman) by chance, can be the trigger for all we're about to see. Then, the structure is very attractive too, as the director tries to make full portraits of each important character and show us, not only what they're doing there, but where they come from, in every sense; he shows us what that person is like, their personality and motivations, and what they want, basically; then he drops that character into the spiral of events that have been started by the attack to the young woman, and so comes this suspenseful story, involving two speleologists, the girlfriend of their leader, a very honest and stern old cop and a dishonest, corrupt young one, and two old men who live in an otherwise derelict village.Something else I liked about the movie is the fact that it shows how absurd and ungrounded violence is; all acts of violence in the movie are completely gratuitous and coming solely from human primal instincts. The violence comes from a lack of communication and a desire for power and beating the opponent.As is the case with many Spanish movies, the ending lacks momentum and power, but works quite well, in any case, and makes much sense.

This film is worth to watch. cause it contains a lot about people's emotions and their reactions when they had a trouble.But for the most of all I really like the elder men's characters such as the police man, and the 2 men who are living in the useless land. their action was really great, especially those two friends who are always arguing each other. They are so cute and wise even though they are lack of power and physical energy.this film consists of quite lots of different stories and the characters in one small place in Spain. Near the San martin station. I am not sure where is it but the scenery of this film's background seems so nice and gives you some pictures of sunshiny Spain. at first the story seems extends a lot from the first story to another story and it also gives you some wondering how those stories gonna be connected. But don't worry, escape from the audience's wondering this film's different stories are quite close and connected in a good logic.This film reminds me one south Korean film that calls as 'Memory of murderer' and one Spanish film that is 'Volver'. That is because of the same item of those films that is especially those film's essential item is girl/woman's sexual harassment. and the way of solution of those films is that they show the whole story in the ending part of the film. They don't show everything in the first part. so that is how they can hold the audiences till the end of the film. and one more thing of this film, that is about the title of this film. the meaning and the nuisance of the concept 'night' is quite 'suspicious'. you don't know what is happening at the night time cause of course it is because of the darkness. So many accidents happen at the night time. and the police man try to find the right answer at the day time when everything is bright. so that is why this film's title has the word, night. and the sunflower is the part of the film's background place. that is quite beautiful and I hope that I could see more of the sunflower but that was only for the just first scene of the film. and I also like the music that is quite part of Spanish culture. I don't know exactly what kind of genre it is. But that music is really fit to that film. what I am talking about is the tango music when the elder man drinking alcohol and reminds his family through the pictures and he turns on the LP music. and the ending scene there is one more music that also feels so good.

Someone involved in the creative aspect - writing, directing - has clearly seen Touch Of Evil and 'borrowed' some of the aspects such as a Spanish-speaking small town, corrupt cop (though not the chief of police) and crossed it with Rashomon to come up with a very watchable quasi thriller which ultimately lacks tension. One of the previous commentors has already identified a major flaw in the shape of the killing carried out in silence (apart from gunshots) with a victim who doesn't bother to ask why he is being targeted and vigilantes who don't think to tell him or even ask if he is guilty. Invariably in a scene like this the avenger will relish saying something along the lines of 'this is what happens when you rape someone's wife, her husband comes looking for you'; but, that would, of course, spoiled things, left the husband with egg on his face and taken the film on a different course. If you can get over this hurdle there are things to be admired and even enjoyed though I for one have to take on trust the notion of 'abandoned' villages which the film implies litter the landscape in Spain.