This is 'Rapa', the rural 'thriller' that unravels the conventions of the genre

The pair of creators are not very given to inactivity or boredom and they quickly established the starting point of their next series.

On the one hand, the place, Galicia, origin of both;

on the other hand, the opening scene: a man lost in the fog on a mountain finds a dying woman, lying on the ground with a blow to the head, and listens to her last words.

rural divided into six chapters and that plays with the topics of the genre (investigative couple, small town shaken by crime...) to stretch it and take it out of the comfort zone.

“Respecting gender is avoiding mannerisms.

Making the effort to understand the murderer and that murderer is close to you is a very powerful thing.

If you don't understand the reasons why someone does something, you don't know how to write it”, defends Coira.

"The more normal the murderer is, the more interesting it is," adds Araújo.

The conversation with this newspaper took place on Tuesday, in the cafeteria of the Film Academy in Madrid, where they participated in a discussion about the series, which has generated a lot of noise before being released.

“When

came out there was no expectation.

And you miss that.

But you also say, that they take away what we danced, ”says Coira amused, with the complicity of her partner.

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rape

, directed by Jorge Coira and Elena Trapé, is the story of a murder, that of the mayor of Cedeira, Amparo Seoane, and of a vital police search, that of the Civil Guard sergeant Maite (Mónica López) and that of the literature teacher Tomás (Javier Cámara), a man evicted by ALS, clinging to this mystery as his last reason for life, impertinent and uncomfortable.

“Because Javier [Cámara] generates such a degree of empathy, you manage to make him not unbearable, but his uncle is a cretin.

Arrogant, bad father, bad teacher, a paragon of flaws”, sums up Araújo.

“The series has the tone that it has and its sense of humor and we always talked about a character that was not the conventional detective, the tough guy... and Javier was like our dream.

We found the story of someone who is investigating a death when he is nearly dead to be gripping.”

Opposite, next door, in a couple with a complex and complicated dynamic to substantiate, an outstanding Mónica López.

He strikes blindly with a will that can only have the one who is not going to lose anything no matter what happens.

She investigates hard but within the official margins, little by little more enclosed in her obsession.

“What he does is very difficult”, specifies Coira about the actress.

Lucia Veiga, in the background, as Norma and Berta Ojea, as her mother, in a scene from 'Rapa'. JAIME OLMEDO

Murder is just an excuse to open your eyes and show a place and its people, their hatred and quarrels, their corruption.

There is political and personal hatred in the plot, badly closed past stories, injustices never repaired and a project to build a mine and extract a rare mineral that would destroy the landscape, but would bring huge amounts of money to the area.

To tell that, the series relies on a solid group of Galician supporting characters and on the other leg of the mystery: Norma (a huge Lucía Veiga), the woman that the viewer knows from the end of the first chapter that she is responsible for the murder.

That is the other risk taken in

.

Or not, depending on how you look at it.

“From the beginning we talked about establishing a relationship with the viewer in which things that normally happen at another point in the story here would happen very soon.

More than how it is going to be resolved, it is how it is going to continue because the spectator stays in a place that is very difficult”, explains Araújo.

— Pointing out the culprit at the end of the first chapter is almost an advantage because that way we can already count from her — says Coira.

— But remember that we were scared (laughs).

When we sent the pilot everyone said, are you sure?

And in fact, that decision has given us a story,” Araújo replies.

It is commonplace to underline the landscape of the Cedeira area as an essential element of this production, but

's approach to the environment is more organic, far from postcard photography, more integrated into the story.

This is how they explain the relationship between the tradition of the rapa das bestas that gives the series its title, the strength of the wild horses that still exist in an area that maintains communal property, and murder: “There we had something that also happens with the landscape, how things can be soft and hard, how it's something that can be very harmonious and violent, it's almost zen.

It's something that's in the story all the time and it was a very powerful metaphor.

Because rapa is a very powerful trait of identity and one that may be on the verge of disappearing”.

Pepe Coira (left) and Fran Araújo.Juanlu Real

It is difficult to count some of the other creative bets without destroying the argument, gutting it for those who are ready to see it from today.

Let's say it's a series in which the procedure is as important as the result, in which the obsession with the truth weighs as much as the means to get there, in which chance and loose ends play an essential role.

If the noir genre in its most classic or normative version tends to comfort the viewer or reader through a conciliatory image of the world, this does not happen here.

The journey that the viewer begins with Norma, when she sees the reasons for her actions, complicates everything.

“By playing with both sides of the coin, when you get to the end,

Mónica López in the role of Maite at a moment that will mark a turning point for her character.

Hierro

and its second part were a resounding success that Movistar Plus+ has repeated, for example, with

and which has been extended to other productions, platforms and genres.

Where is the key?

“Understanding that television fiction is not a certain type of story, or format, but is potentially as broad as film fiction.

Start playing to do things of all kinds”, analyzes Coira.

"Freedom and a budget for people who have a lot of talent," concludes Araújo.

And in this context, will there be a continuation of

?

"Let's see how the first part goes first," they respond almost at the same time, complicit looks, before continuing with the promotion.

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