One week after its premiere, David Casademunt’s debut feature tops the list.
The debut of David Casademunt, the wasteland, has reached number one for the most viewed non-English speaking films of Netflix, the fifth if those recorded in this language are included, one week after its premiere. “I am very happy, honestly I did not expect this success”, points its director overwhelmed to EFE.
“The truth is that it has caught us all by surprise, because look who we are competing with, with the biggest stars of cinema such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Alyssa Milano, Chlöe Grace Moretz or Cate Blanchett, and see the face of little Asier ( protagonist of the film) in the top 10 next to those great artists is fantastic”, clarify.
According to the Netflix Top10 website, the film has been viewed for a total of 11.9 million hours -the platform, instead of measuring it by number of views, counts it like this- since it premiered on January 6 and for the period that is measured between the 3rd and the 9th of that month (that is, it has only been four days of that week).
It is also the fifth most viewed film on the platform in Spain, where the most viewed continues to be don’t look up, as well as globally.
Despite the fact that “the romantic side” of the director would have preferred a theatrical release, even if it was only for a couple of weeks, he acknowledges that the help of the platform to promote the film “is fantastic”.
“I am more than grateful to them because I have been lucky enough to premiere on a platform that is present in more than 190 countries and, with the one that is falling, premiering in the cinema would have been more difficult”, affects.
The film was made in Casademunt’s head (Barcelona, 1984) years ago, but it wasn’t until 2014 when he started writing the script together with Fran Menchon and Marti Lucas. From the first line to the first day of shooting, six and a half years passed. He says that “without the help of the production company Rodar Rodar and later Netflix, it would not have come out ahead.”
the wasteland tells the story of a family Lucía (Inma Cuesta), her husband Salvador (Roberto Álamo) and their son Diego (Asier Flores), who lives isolated from the rest of society. Since the departure of the father, mother and son they hardly receive visitors and their goal is to develop a peaceful existence. At first they succeed, but the appearance of a mysterious and violent creature that begins to harass their small house will test the relationship that unites them.
Casademunt explains that the theory why the film may be so successful is that “it is not difficult to recognize oneself in the most basic: it is the story of a mother and a son. And we are all there”.
“What we wanted from the beginning was to seek empathy from the public, so a story of a mother and her son who live a nightmare such as isolation, depression and not going crazy, are very recognizable today”, bill.
On the other hand, despite the fact that the film is a horror “thriller”, it is also based on the pillars of solitary confinement, fear, loneliness and, far above, mental disorders; Topics that are very topical due to confinement and the pandemic that the world is experiencing.
“When we wrote the script we didn’t expect this to happen at all. However, when we started shooting in the middle of the third wave, we did incorporate into the film a lot of what we were experiencing or had experienced in confinement. Communication with the actors was also easier, because they knew what I was talking about.”, details.
“The film talks about some primary fears, and to be able to tell them we had to look inside ourselves. In my case, when I was 15 years old I had to see the slow degradation until the death of my father and that monster has stayed there forever. That was the starting point”, confess.
After having broken the barrier of debutant director – “one that is very difficult because they take you less seriously,” he says – and having cast his first film as number one on Netflix, the director is already working on his next project. “I can’t make any progress, I just hope that another seven years don’t go by”, he concludes. (I)
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