La Mesías on MUBI: a great series to (re)discover

Toxic mother, sectarian family and fundamentalist Catholic pop group: the duo Los Javis has created a series not to be missed under any circumstances.

Anyone who has seen it will tell you: La Mesías is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most significant works that television has produced in recent years. In November 2024, this mini-series landed by surprise on Arte and exploded in the eyes of the world the talent of its duo of Spanish creators, Los Javis, aka Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, who left the last Cannes Film Festival with the directing prize for their ambitious and confusing La bola negra.

Seven episodes of approximately one hour to tell, from the 2000s to the present day, the destiny of a fundamentalist Catholic family: the mother, Montserrat, convinced that God speaks to her; the surrogate father, absolute rigorist; the siblings, under sectarian influence and evolving in isolation in this crazy house (until, for the most daring, their return to the world).

If all this doesn’t sound very happy, that’s because it actually isn’t, but Los Javis shake up the formula with pop intuitions that are as surprising as they are stimulating – the kids form a music group to preach the good word on YouTube; the queer aesthetic and the daring soundtrack; alien hunters who invite themselves into the story – and a plethora of narrative, staging or acting ideas. Like the choice of these actresses with totally different physiques to embody young and aging Montserrat, which reinforces, against all expectations, the power of this vampiric character.

The Mesías thus functions in controlled slippages and collisions of elements which should never come into contact. A mental labyrinth managing to combine absolute suspense within the framework of a family drama, while questioning the power of images, the need for spirituality and the collective. Unmissable.

La Mesías, 7 episodes to watch on MUBI.