We are brutal
2019 · 9m · España
Directed by Albert Quer, Víctor Català
Genres: biography, dark comedy, drama
Tones: darkly comic, melancholic, theatrical
Heavy-metal frontman Johnny Brutal, once number one worldwide, is accused of murder after a strange death at an orgy; twelve years later, forgotten and defeated out of prison, his biggest fan films a documentary about him and tries to lure him back to music.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A washed-up metal god accused of murder, resurrected by a fanatic documentarian—this is the kind of premise that sounds like a parody until it isn't, and Quer and Català lean into that discomfort instead of winking at it. The film refuses the obvious redemption arc, which is exactly why it works.
The theatrical tonal register—melancholic yet darkly comic—sits in a lineage of character studies that distrust sincerity, executed here with formal control; the editing understands that Johnny Brutal's celebrity is as much a construct as his name, and the film's architecture reflects that perfectly.
What elevates this from a concept into cinema is the single choice to shoot the documentary-within-the-film in a register so earnest and devotional it becomes genuinely unsettling; that tonal gap between the fan's reverence and Johnny's hollow compliance does all the heavy lifting on a micro budget.