In one of the first scenes of Normal, characters joke about the disaster that could happen if the rifles decorating the walls of a rustic restaurant were loaded. At that precise moment, the viewer understands that the film tacitly commits to making this bloody desire a reality, and one only needs to try to guess in what context the massacre will occur. This is the dynamic that keeps the film going: anticipating the arrival of violence while looking for unexpected ways to make it explode. The person in charge of orchestrating it is Ben Wheatley, a British filmmaker who over the past decade earned a reputation for the joy with which he violated the physical integrity of his characters. The interest in contemplating the consequences that weapons (blades or firearms) have on the human body is, in fact, the most recognizable staging gesture we can detect in Normal, which has its authentic creative strength in the tandem formed by Bob Odenkirk's anti-star charisma and the writing of Derek Kolstad, author of the John Wick screenplay. Both had previously worked together on Nobody (2021), where Odenkirk clashed his ordinary aura with extreme beatings. Normal prolongs their alliance by lowering the dose of pure action in favor of a farce steeped in black humor that, if it surprises for anything, it is for the understanding permissiveness it applies to the moral opacity embraced by those who feel scorned by the system.

"My God, the guy who's made all these films must be a maniac," said director Ben Wheatley about the montage of scenes from his filmography that was screened this Tuesday at the Sitges Film Festival before presenting him with the Màquina del Temps award. A very special award for the Briton, because Sitges was "the first film festival" he attended, before directing films. "You'd go to the bar and there'd be George Romero, and you'd think: 'Are all festivals like this?' I spent three days getting drunk, watching films and talking about cinema, it was incredible."