A deep dive into precarity

Today, when it seems that cinema can talk about everything and show everything, it is at least significant that the place most films don't dare to go is the world of work, precisely what determines the daily lives of most of the population. It is one of capitalism's great triumphs: turning work into a kind of dramatic taboo, a residue where fictions don't bother to linger, lest we begin to question the meaning or the fairness of the activity that occupies our routines. Fortunately, there are still some filmmakers committed to making clear what their antiheroes live (and die) by, as is the case with Alberto Rodríguez.

In fact, what is most seductive about The tigers It's a description of the work done by the siblings played by Antonio de la Torre and Bárbara Lennie, divers who urgently repair (because, as we all know, time is money) the oil tankers that stop in the port of Huelva. This risky profession erodes the mental and physical health of the protagonists, who at a certain point are forced to make a bad decision to get out of the well. Rodríguez describes their circumstances with precision, avoiding justifications and judgments, and allows the audience to accompany them and hold their breath from the other side of the screen, perhaps recognizing in the underwater images a reflection of the precariousness that affects (almost) all of us.