Javier Cámara and Mónica López star in this fiction that begins with the murder of the mayor of Cedeira, a fishing village in the province of La Coruña
The order is very tense. The thick fog covers everything. And there’s Tomás (Javier Cámara), who walks on top of the mountain, not really knowing where each step takes him. A scream interrupts their morning walk. He quickens his pace, until he encounters a woman lying on the ground, surrounded by mud, dirt and grass, with a bloody head. In the distance, Tomás thinks he sees someone walking away, dressed in a green raincoat, and hears the engine of a vehicle that seems to be fleeing the scene of the crime. It’s a few seconds, but it seems like an eternity. The woman manages to say three words to him before falling unconscious, as in an Agatha Christie novel. Tomás stops a vehicle and, with the help of the driver, manages to take the woman to the hospital, but the doctors can’t do anything to save her life. Maite (Mónica López), a Civil Guard sergeant, tells him that she is Amparo Seoane, the mayor of Cedeira, a municipality of only 7,000 inhabitants in the province of La Coruña.
Thus begins ‘Rapa’, the new fiction created by Pepe Coira and Fran Araújo and directed by Jorge Coira along with Elena Trapé, the people behind the entertaining ‘Hierro’. Like this one, ‘Rapa’ is again an intense thriller focused on the characters, which stands out for its brilliant staging – it contains some of the most beautiful scenery in the region in which the action takes place – where you get the feeling of the cold, the wind and the moisture that settles in the bones, although it sometimes sins too willingly, as can be seen in the abuse of the drone or in the endless slow-motion shots.
The special thing about ‘Rapa’ is that in reality, a few minutes after the fiction raises the issue, the viewer already knows who the killer of the mayor is, but not the protagonists. However, he knows nothing of the reasons behind the terrible action and that will be revealed little by little, as in good stories of intrigue and mystery. In that sense there is nothing new under the sun, but the story is very well put together and the six chapters look good.
Beyond the big visual bill of fiction, it’s in the characters where Coira and Araújo hit the nail on the head again. The most important is Tomás, a language and literature teacher at an institute in Cedeira, who is a bit tired of his monotonous daily life. The mayor’s murder will soon fuel his meager bloodhound skills and test his few social skills. A good part of town has it like a freak. Hermetic and somewhat surly, Tomás sees in crime the only opportunity to experience something similar to what he has experienced in the hundreds of novels he has read throughout his life. In this way he will try to get out of that shell in which he has been living for the past few years. Camera once again stands out for the naturalness it imprints on this clumsy Jessica Fletcher impersonator.
Maite, the sergeant, inevitably reminds Judge Candela of “Hierro.” She is a strong, intelligent female character with character, in which López manages to get by without any problems. His daughter goes to Tomás’ class and, aware of its idiosyncrasies, does not buy it. Next to her works a cop from Madrid, played by Jorge Bosch, a character with a very clear function: he is the pillar on which the viewer leans and makes it easier for them to get to know all the idiosyncrasies that surround Cedeira and her people. Together with them, a gallery of characters as strange as they are attractive, which serves to unravel some of the secrets that the mayor kept.
And it’s that ‘Rapa’ doesn’t just talk about a crime and the barriers the protagonists have to overcome to solve it; It also describes, very sensibly, a kind of politics, rather populist, framed in small towns where everyone knows each other, and characterized by favoritism and prejudice. Already in the first minutes of the narration, the first questions arise about the motive for the crime: starting a mine that will pierce one of the mountains of the municipality? Old personal grudge? Political jokes? The truth is, you want to dive into the mystery.
The series will be released on Movistar Plus+ on May 19.
Source: La Verdad
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