When travelling through any part of the world that holds some significant history (regardless of region or continent), I am always struck by the feeling that I am not alone at that present moment – even without a travelling companion, there is a familiar feeling that lingers over many of these places, creating a sense that the spirits of the past are present in some form. You don’t need to subscribe to any ethereal beliefs to encounter this sensation, and I’d even argue that this is one of the primary reasons we are so interested in the past, since we desire to learn about the people who inhabited our world over the course of the centuries. Europe itself holds such a significant history, and the more you explore some of its hidden corners, the further our understanding of the past and its people comes to be developed. This is a concept that Gabriel Azorín used as the foundation for Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes (Spanish: Anoche conquisté Tebas), his absolutely exquisite directorial debut in which the past and present collide in one of the year’s most striking artistic statements. The film is set in two distinct time periods – the first is the present day, and follows a group of young men in their early twenties as they make their way to ancient thermal baths in a remote part of Galicia, which have been considered to be somewhat enchanted for centuries, becoming a part of the popular mythology of the region. The second time period is thousands of years in the past, centring on two young Roman soldiers who also find themselves in the same place. Over the course of two extended conversations, the young men ponder the nature of existence, pose challenging questions to one another about how they see the world and its many peculiarities, and even engage in the act of questioning their identity, all of which provoke them in fascinating and complex ways, changing their view of reality in the process. A debut that is both extremely assured and profoundly experimental, Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes is a major work], and immediately establishes Azorín as an essential young voice in contemporary cinema, someone who captures the unspoken folklore of the Iberian peninsula, as well as its storied, complex history, and brings it to life on screen with precision, majesty and a sense of curiosity that will stand him in good stead as one of our most interesting and audacious young auteurs.

Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes is a film built around a few key themes, each one being delicately brought to life on screen by a director whose focus never shifts from exploring particular concepts that both inspire and puzzle him. The fundamental topic that we find is most prominent in this film is that of masculinity – the story begins with a group of young men making their way to the site of some ancient thermal baths. They engage in playful banter, discussing the exact topics that we would expect from them at this age – trivial, mostly meaningful conversations designed to bond rather than challenge. However, as night grows closer, their inhibitions begin to slip, with two of them in particular finding themselves baring their souls, being apprehensive in revealing their innermost existential quandaries to one another, but being inspired enough by their tranquil surroundings to simply articulate their feelings, even if it means potentially challenging a friendship built primarily on more lighthearted topics. The subject of the conversations is not ambiguous themselves, covering themes that we would normally anticipate to find taking place, but the writing is sharp enough to make it very clear that we can’t take everything contained within this film at face value, and that the further we peer beneath the surface, the clearer its intentions become. Azorin never intends to provide us with easy answers, but we do find that Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes benefits from the viewer asserting their own inner reading, since the conversations are clear enough not to be confusing, but have enough room within them for us to develop our individual interpretation. The two core conversations around which the film revolves could be read as simply two young men pondering reality and questioning existence, or as a thinly-veiled queer allegory. I personally veer towards the latter, since the themes of desire – particularly when it comes to articulating the words that we sometimes are too frightened to say in the light of day, but develop the courage to speak about when the moment feels appropriate – are present in many of the quieter moments, both in the sequences set during the present day and those taking place in the ancient world. The director’s overall thesis statement is not made clear, but it is obvious that he’s seeking out a means to communicate the idea that we have been carrying the same questions and existential quandaries for millennia, and are no closer to answering them today than we were thousands of years ago, and that we may never truly have the solutions we desperately crave.

For a film about quiet masculinity across two very different time periods, the director needed to construct a cast that could play into the magical realism of the story, being able to adapt easily to the changing setting, while also embodying these characters with both clear differences and distinct similarities, as part of his intention to show that time may divide us into different periods, but we have more in common with the people who lived centuries ago, with the same insecurities, desires and need for validation and acceptance existing back them as they do today. The cast is composed almost entirely of young newcomers who are making their film debut. The nature of Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes means that none of them can be considered the standout in the traditional sense, as they are merely players in a story that revolves around conversations, rather than characterisation. Nevertheless, everyone in the film is terrific, with their dedication to the hefty dialogue (where each conversation is filled with allegory and complexities that even the most seasoned of veterans would struggle with) and the development of complex individuals being absolutely spellbinding. The closest we find to a protagonist here comes in the form of Santiago Mateus as Antonio in the modern section, and Oussama Asfaraah as Aurelius in the scenes set in the past. They’re two very distinct people, but share a few qualities, such as deep vulnerability and a craving to understand the world into which they have inadvertently been plunged, doing what they can to make sense of a confusing existence that they never asked for, but which they still have to navigate. Their scene partners are Antonio Martim Gouveia as Jota and Pavle Čemerikić as Pompey, who are slightly older and therefore take the position of mentor figures to the young men, who look towards them for guidance and support, not realising that they may have more wisdom, but are far from understanding life any more than their younger counterparts. It’s a fascinating approach, and the work by the actors underlines the deeper meaning lingering in each moment, their quiet resistance becoming a feature in a film that builds itself around their subtle, nuanced and achingly beautiful performances.

A large part of the success of Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes comes from the fact that it is anchored by a cast of very gifted young actors whose inexperience lends the story a sense of complexity, while their willingness to play such deeply pensive characters allows the film to use them as vessels to explore some deeper and more provocative subject matter. However, it is Azorin who is truly deserving of the majority of this credit, since he not only enlists these actors (entrusting them with his devastatingly beautiful script and having the confidence that, despite being newcomers, that they would find the intricately-woven truths within it), but uses them to communicate so many compelling ideas that encapsulate this film and everything that it represents. This is not a film that relishes in being particularly conventional – it is built around a few key conversations (essentially two centrepiece discussions between a pair of characters, with a range of others being present, conducting smaller conversations that don’t progress the plot but add contextual detail or purely just allow for the development of some texture to the story), each one starting as simply banter, but eventually evolving into more poetic examinations of the inner lives of these people, who represent entire generations of young men trying to make sense of the world, which they realise is a fool’s errand. On a purely technical level, Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes is a masterful piece of filmmaking – the cinematography by Giuseppe Trupi not only captures the beautiful natural surroundings (filmed on location in parts of Spain and Portugal, standing in for the Bande province Ourense in Galicia), shrouding the film in a dreamlike state that draws the viewer in, becomign a mesmerising attempt to marry the past and the present in a way that feels less like two distinct chapters, but rather a cohesive stream of ideas that take place in a set of conversations that just happen to be divided by thousands of years of history. It’s daring and compelling filmmaking, and Azorin proves that he is not only a gifted storyteller, but a tremendous craftsman, his attention to detail and willingness to find beauty in the quietest and most unconventional of places becoming the very root of the brilliance that defines Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes, a film that is as visually striking as it is narratively complex.

Ambiguity is not a shortcoming in the case of Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes, and the director acknowledges the importance of allowing the viewer to determine their own interpretation, being entirely incredulous to the idea that his meaning, or what he intended to be the core message of the film, is entirely definitive. Azorin places this film into our care, trusting us to care for it through simply engaging with its core ideas, allowing our interpretations to be as valid as anything that is established or confirmed throughout the story. The evolution of its ideas feels natural and invigorating, and we can’t help but be entirely bewitched by the beauty and quiet splendour of this film. It’s very simple in terms of both subject matter and execution (and is oddly quite subtle in how it recreates the ancient world, which is usually subjected to far more elaborate filmmaking), but we still find ourselves seeking meaning beneath every layer, each conversation containing striking and beautifully moving depictions of the human condition in its most raw, unfiltered form. It is a masterful example of experimental cinema, where the slow pace and steady narrative composition are an intentional choice, designed to provoke thought, establishing some key questions in the mind of the viewer while making it clear that the answers are going to be far out of reach. It’s a brilliantly engaging work and shows the virtue of allowing certain subjects to flourish organically. The approach may be a bit more complex at times, especially in how it represents the two different time periods through nothing but conversation and small visual cues (such as the clothing worn by these young men while visiting these thermal baths), it allows for an intentionally ambigious oscillation between past and present – once these young men have been reduced to the most basic level of modesty, submerged in these thermal pools, it is difficult to distinguish when the scene is taking place, an intentional choice designed to show that society may change and develop, but the key philosophical quandaries remain the same. Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes is a brilliant, engaging work that introduces us to a gifted director and his extraordinary cast, who come together to examine masculinity and desire from duelling perspectives, demonstrating that the most meaningful stories are often those which we allow to take their time, quietly and methodically becoming the foundation for one of the year’s most poetic excavations of the collective human existence.