Hole 2 It is the second part, or prequel, of The Holethe 2019 film by Basque director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia in which we explored a particularly cruel facility. The “hole” that gives its name to the film is a space with 333 levels, with two inhabitants per level and a hole, through which a platform full of all kinds of food descends every day. If those at the top eat a lot, those at the bottom are left with nothing. Each month, tenants are randomly changed levels, so they can go from gorging to starving, and that’s no way to speak.
Nothing subtle, right? Readers have probably already seen the first installment, which discreetly appeared in theaters in 2019, with the usual lack of distribution and promotion for Spanish horror or science fiction products, but it became a super success via Netflix. Precisely on the platform of the big red N is where this sequel premiered last Friday, October 4, which actually expands its universe into the past. Or not, we’ll get to that right away.
Overtly political metaphors
If in the first installment we followed Goreng (Iván Massagué) in his literal descent into the hells of the pit, in the second we meet Perempuán (Milena Smit) and Zamiatin (Hovik Keuchkerian), two newcomers to the facility for reasons that we will discover. The new film explores the same paths as the previous one about inequality, selfishness and that metaphorical cannibalismthat of ultra-capitalism forcing us to devour our peers to survive, even if it is just one more week, to see if in the next we are lucky and we don’t have such a bad time.
The Hole1 and 2, is a overtly political workand that if in the previous one it entertained itself in portraying the sins of stark neoliberalism, in the current one it flirts with reflecting the cruelty of the Soviet dictatorships or religious fanaticism, and then ends up stoking even the roof of the mouth (and it is not a to speak) to the messianic libertarians of our day, even with their own version of assault on Congress.
The director, by the way, has just premiered at the Sitges Festival Rich Flua science-fiction story in which a deadly disease affects only the rich. So they try to quickly get rid of their assets, but of course, no one accepts it. I don’t know whether to call it dystopia or utopia, but it is striking that thanks to the success of the 2019 film, I am having the opportunity to film all of these demolition metaphors so obvious and direct, demonstrating how the system is capable of regurgitating any type of criticism.
Care as redemption
In Hole 2 We see Perempuán go through a very similar transit to Goreng, and his reasons for entering the hole are relatively similar (and related, although this is spoiler). The point of view that Gaztelu-Urrutia chooses is that of someone from, let’s say, middle class, a creative profession and by extension a high cultural capital although without going overboard, that is, something like a reflection of your expected audience. And therefore a vehicle for their anxieties, which go so far as to dramatically descend in level, to down there where there are no rules and we believe that the barbarians rule by eating each other – like the morlocks of HGWells devoured the eloi—, as by the consequences of a violent rebellion. Something that is feared and desired at the same time, the epitome of a repressed idea.
Perempuán’s catharsis is different from Goreng’s, but They both redeem themselves in the same way: by caring for someone who is defenseless.of a child. It is worth asking why Gaztelu-Urrutia chooses to repeat the solution, and even underline that repetition. In part it seems as if Hole 2 It was just an extension of The Hole but with more freedom thanks to a larger budget, developing as a bloody war between levels what in the first were only vaguely violent skirmishes. But it can’t be just that.
Somehow The Hole It presents itself as a cycle, one in which there is no outside that we can identify. We are reminded that it belongs to some kind of official or dependent body of the Government – a government, any government – but also that whoever enters does so voluntarily, sometimes for very naive or egocentric motivations. That one out there, those officials that we guess or sometimes see, who are torturing the exact number of 666 people of all races, ages and backgrounds every month and from time to time they allow themselves the luxury of adding a random child.
Although it seems obvious that one of the messages is that love and tenderness, or care if you want to be less corny, is the only way out in the face of barbarism and dehumanizationit is also true that one more clarification remains pending, a finishing touch from the filmmaker for his undisguised metaphor for current events. An impossible resolution for wild inequality and the fear of falling into the depths of the hole, one that goes beyond the hinted flirtations with Eastern spirituality and the afterlife.
An answer, in short, that does not leave us as we are now, so afraid of this closed system in which we do not know how to distribute food as of the only ways we can think of to blow it up. Maybe it’s asking too much of a film that just wants us to keep thinking about it for a while longer.