Castello di sabbia

by Pierre Oscar Lévy, Frederik Peeters

Una piccola insenatura nascosta, una spiaggia incontaminata in un magnifico scenario di mare e roccia. Un angolo di paradiso che promette spensieratezza ai pochi turisti che sono riusciti a raggiungerlo: due coppie con i figli, uno scrittore di fantascienza, un giovane immigrato… quattordici persone in tutto. Ma iniziano ad accadere strani fenomeni, e presto per bambini e adulti la vacanza si trasforma in un mistero, poi in una trappola dalla quale sembra impossibile fuggire.
Lo sceneggiatore francese Pierre Oscar Lévy e il disegnatore franco-svizzero Frederik Peeters hanno dato vita a un graphic novel affascinante e ipnotico, che ricorda in certi momenti L’angelo sterminatore di Luis Buñuel. Un viaggio che inizia alla luce del sole e si conclude tra inquietanti ombre notturne, trascinando il lettore in una corsa a perdifiato contro il tempo.
Un thriller psicologico dalle atmosfere perturbanti, una storia ai confini della realtà che ha conquistato M. Night Shyamalan. Dopo aver ricevuto il graphic novel in regalo dalle figlie, il noto regista di capolavori del mistero come Il sesto senso, Unbreakable e Glass ha deciso di trarne il suo nuovo, attesissimo film. Old uscirà nelle sale italiane il 21 luglio 2021, con un cast che comprende tra gli altri Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps e Rufus Sewell.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Horror, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Actual rating: 1.5

Half a star for the cool concept (which I won’t spoil), but everything else just made me so damn uncomfortable. Too much nudity and sexual activity involving CHILDREN!!! Seriously, amidst all this insanity: why are all the “kids” so sex-crazed??? Actual quote: “We’ll organize an orgy... Just the kids.” Absolutely appalling. The ending was expected, but there’s no resolution/explanation whatsoever. This graphic novel just sort of happens... and then it ends. Maybe I’m missing some subtle allusions to moral, metaphor, or allegory, but I don’t really care.

The black and white coloring and style was hard to look at, and many of the details were lost inside the panels.

Also, the dog dying was upsetting. Why do authors always feel the need the kill the animals? And don’t fucking come at me with “But people died, too” bullshit.

I heard M. Night Shyamalan is adapting this as his next film. It sounds like his kind of thing, but I wonder how he’ll be able to capture the concept for live action...

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lévy and Peeters muse on the vicissitudes of life, aging, and death. There is a plot, of sorts: a handful of people who visit a small stretch of beach come across a corpse, soon realize that their bodies are rapidly aging, and eventually learn that they won't be able to leave this beach. Children grow up rapidly, explore each other's bodies, get pregnant, give birth. Adults become even more themselves as their life cycle accelerates. The tone for this existential mystery is plaintive and melancholy rather than sinister, as very little time but a lot of ambiguity is given to the reasons behind why this is happening. The moral: people will be people, even if their lives are shortened and compressed? One can only guess.

Lévy keeps his dialogue straightforward and prosaic, with only the occasional flight of mournful, somber musing. Peeters' black and white drawings aren't in my favorite sort of style, but they are certainly effective at capturing a mood that feels both real and dreamlike. Overall this was a minor but intriguing experience.

synopsis: we all live, we all age, we all die.

[Victor Almeida · Rating 2 out of 5]

que? kkkk

[La loca de los libros · Rating 5 out of 5]

A raíz de ver la nueva película del director de El sexto sentido, me entraron una ganas locas de leer e indagar más sobre la obra en la que se basó para dirigir Tiempo. Así que, no lo dudé y me fui de cabeza a por esta novela gráfica que ahonda sobre el inexorable paso del tiempo, la madurez y con ello el descubrimiento de la sexualidad, las decisiones dispares que toman un heterogéneo grupo de personas ante situaciones difíciles e incluso el racismo.

Diversos temas de interés se aúnan en una obra muy completa que nos hace reflexionar sobre la vida y su fugacidad.
Con un toque fantástico que no le resta interés nos veremos envueltos en la espiral de locura y desesperación que asola a los protagonistas en esa apartada playa de un lugar indeterminado.
A pesar de los evidentes cambios con respecto a la película lo he disfrutado muchísimo.
Una historia muy dura y emotiva que nos muestra los claroscuros del alma humana en toda su esencia.
Tanto el dibujo como la historia no tienen desperdicio. Una delicia página tras página que se lee prácticamente sola.
Lo mejor para disfrutarla y saborearla es no saber mucho más. Así que yo les animo a que la lean y la disfruten tanto como he hecho yo.
No se arrepentirán 😉

⛱ "A lo mejor todavía sigue aquí mañana el castillo de arena, pero nosotros desapareceremos como insectos efímeros."

📚 https://www.facebook.com/LaLocadelosL... 📚

[Obsidian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yikes. So I read this cause of the new M. Night Shyamalan film. And I don't know. There's a lot of uncomfortable sexual situations involving children. It's a graphic novel, and that somehow makes it more upsetting seeing it in black and white. Plus I have to say that this book just seemed focused on the taboo of things and not actually explaining a blessed thing. The ending I think was supposed to be haunting, but I just went this makes no sense. Definitely not happy about how much I paid for this one.

"Sandcastle" is a graphic novel that follows a family visiting a hidden beach. The family consists of a mother (Marianne), father (Robert), and two children, Felix, 3 and Zoe, 5. They find a bunch of abandoned clothes and jewelry and eventually find a solitary man who watches them and says very little. When another family shows up and some other people out walking, it appears that the children in the group are growing up quickly and others are aging rapidly. As they try to figure out a way to get off the beach, the whole thing turns into chaos.

As I said, kids growing up and it being really explicit about sexual situations made me hard cringe about this. I get that horror should make you squeamish and uncomfortable, but it seemed that was all the novel wanted to show us. We had some half hearted attempts for people to leave and that was it. I wanted more explanation of things and even some better dialogue.

I will say the artwork was stark and moving in a lot of the panels.

[Kaitie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only giving this more than one star for the art. If someone wants to read this as a reference to learn figure drawing there are better books to turn to, but this wouldn't be the worst place. But the artist is not the writer here. The book wants to talk about demise, which seems the likely place to go with an unusual age-progression premise, but I could not get beyond how side-tracked the story would get with the sexual aspect of it. It is made explicitly clear that the young characters, ranging from a young teen to little kids, have the same mentality even when they gain adult bodies. It is explained that they don't have a strong grasp of empathy outside of their pets. The entire ending hinges on this child-like mentality. And yet they miraculously know what being on your period means and have enough knowledge about sex to become pregnant without any adult ever mentioning the concept. The youngest character, a little boy in an adult body, insists he has to have sex before he dies. The fourteen-year-old comes on to a married man saying it's okay not only because of her body but because they'll all be killed before he ever sees his family again. And he agrees. It operates on this straight and allosexual perspective that if two opposite genders are even next to each other and have the opportunity they must have sex. And yet only one of the married couples in the large cast seem to even enjoy each other's company. It wants to discuss existentialism, but it isn't mature enough to realize true existentialism is enjoying your own life and not just wallowing. We learn very little of the other character's lives to begin with and frankly with the way it talks other topics it complete lost me early on.
Critics have been comparing this to a Twilight Zone episode but that show was never this exploitative. This is more like a mediocre episode of Tales from the Crypt that no one remembers outside of the ending. And those shows never felt like a snuff film powered by unseen magic.
An uncomfortable read. Skip it for anything other than the art.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

5/22/23 edit: The movie was gloriously, hilariously awful. I’m not even sure what else to say.

Just wait for the movie. Please don’t waste your time.

5/29/21 edit: I was going to leave my review at the two sentences above, but the more I thought about this, the more I realized that I have quite a lot to say about what happens in this book. I have no doubt that the intentions were good, but the execution was botched and the entire thing fell apart as a result.

•None of the characters were interesting. They were either two-dimensional or so unremarkable that they could have been removed with little to no consequence. It didn't really matter to me if they died or not, because none of them left a strong enough impression to make me care.
•The dog didn't need to be included. He was only there for shock value when he inevitably died. I'm so tired of horror stories using animal deaths to try and be edgy, it's gotten old and it's just callous and unnecessary.
•The racism did not need to be here. It was rightfully portrayed as wrong, but as with a lot of this book, it went nowhere and had no purpose outside of making one of the father characters a despicable human being. Taking it out would not have changed anything about the overall plot, it would have just made one annoying character slightly less annoying.
•Sexualizing the children was gross. I don't care if they're aged up, we've seen these kids as ACTUAL KIDS and we don't need to see them going through puberty and having sex and talking about having orgies. It was uncomfortable and - surprise surprise! - added absolutely nothing. Did I need to see a teenage boy's penis close-up? No. Did the fourteen-year-old girl need to be sex-crazed as she rapidly aged? Also no. Did we need a pregnancy subplot? Once again, no.
•Speaking of the pregnancy subplot, it was so nice of everyone on that beach to die overnight and leave the baby (or young woman, when the story ends) all by herself as she waits for her impending demise. The adults I can understand passing in the night, but if an hour is equivalent to two years, that would mean everyone would age 48 years in 24 hours, and the kids would be middle-aged at the very MOST the next day. They'd still have a handful of hours before they died of old age, and unless they all took some kind of cyanide before falling asleep, I doubt they'd all be dead.
•The joint suicide of the engaged couple was so romantic and DEFINITELY NECESSARY. /sarcasm
•The hotel boy running down the beach and getting shot was never explained. Was it a mass hallucination? Was it real? Who knows, who cares, we have minors to sexualize and that's definitely our top priority.
•The fable the man from Algeria told at the end was far more interesting than the entirety of the actual story. I would have rather read about the king trying to escape death for 100 pages.
•Why did the phones stop working after one phone call? Why did the police never show up? The beach isn't completely out of the way, fourteen people end up there over the course of the story, so it can't be that difficult to find. And were the phones aging, too? Is that why they couldn't dial out after a while?
•I understand this is supposed to be a commentary on how death is inescapable and no one is exempt, but it just felt so damn bleak and depressing as a result.
•Nitpick Corner: I wasn't a fan of the art style. It just wasn't pleasant to look at, especially the graphic pictures of genitals. The black and white also made it hard to tell what was going on at times, with how everything kind of blended in together.

I'm intrigued with how M. Night Shyamalan worked with this concept in Old. He at least seems to have aged up the kids' bathing suits with them so they're not walking around naked, and that's already an improvement over the source material. I'm liking the horror angle that was largely absent from the novel, where the characters became pretty resigned to their fates after a while and stopped fighting it; you would think that they'd be trying harder to escape and trying different things, other than running into an invisible barrier and expecting a different result each time. This added to my reading challenge for the year, and lord knows I'm way behind on it, but this book wasn't worth the extra title. It really wasn't.

[Ayman Gomaa · Rating 1 out of 5]

هل سمعت عن الفيلم الذى اثار ضجة مؤخرا باعلانه المبهر OLD ?
للمخرج م.نايت.شيامالان المعروف بعوالمه الغريبة المميزة لكنها مميزة فقط عندما يكون من بديع خياله لكنه هنا اقتبس فيلمه الاخير من هذة الكوميكس الغريبة .

و على الرغم من ان الفيلم سيئ و خاب كل التوقعات و كان اعلانه المتمثل فى دقيقتين افضل من الساعتين الا ربع مدة الفيلم لكن يحسب له انه حط لمسته فى محاولة منه للرقى بهذة الكوميكس السيئة قليلاً لكنها لم تكن كافية حتى السيناريو كان سطحى لابعد حد و شيامالان جعل النهاية افضل للمشاهدين من ظلامية الكوميكس و النهاية التى لا هدف لها ولا اساس .

الكوميكس تدور عن ثلاث عائلات يذهبوا لجزيرة منعزلة لكن بعد قليل من الزمن تبدا اشياء غريبة تدور حولهم خاصة بعد ان يعثروا على جثة هناك , ثم الشعور بهذة القوة الخفية ان الجزيرة لا تريدهم ان يخرجوا منها و يبدا الهلع و الجنون عندما يبدا الكل فى يكبر فى السن فى ساعات قليلة بمقدر كل 3-4 اعوام كل ساعة من الزمن , ما جعل الكوميكس سيئة هى حالة اللامبالاة فى الشخصيات عاماً , فالشخصيات الكبيرة سناً لم يهلعوا كثير و تقبلوا الامر الواقع اما الاطفال و هنا اللطمة الكبرى اصبحوا فى حالة من العرى و الجنس و التفكير فى الجنس فقط بطريقة مقززة تدعو للاشمئزاز كانت هى ما جعلتنى ان ايقن ان الكاتب مش طبيعى اطلاقاً لحشو اشياء مثل هذة بدون سبب و كان الكل تقبل الموت فأهلا بالجنس .

سيئة سيئة سيئة و الفيلم سيئ سيئ سيئ .

[Sam Quixote · Rating 4 out of 5]

A man hiding on the cliff face of a beach watches a young woman skinny dip in the sea. A couple of families show up early to the beach to set up their stuff before the crowds appear and one of them discovers the young woman floating face down in the sea - or at least she was young, not now. Slowly as more people appear on the beach they notice strange things happening to the kids. The three year old boy suddenly looks much older, at least six, while his five year old sister is taller and beginning puberty. They realise that the beach is somehow making them all age incredibly quickly but find that they can't leave - they're enclosed in some kind of force field. And at the rate they're aging, it looks like everyone's going to die there.

"Sandcastle" is a fascinating and strange sci-fi/Twilight Zone-type story with plenty of mystery that'll keep you reading until the end, never guessing where it's going. This is Pierre Oscar Levy's first comic book and he writes it very well with the surprises coming thick and fast with interesting characters making up this small band of doomed people. There are elements in the story that aren't explained, added to the overall mystery of what the beach was/is. Some kind of government experiment gone wrong? A dream? Is the beach a portal to a parallel dimension? Are the people somehow metaphors for sandcastles, that appear on the beach and disappear over the span of a day? Small events in the book point to different explanations but ultimately it's up to the reader to decide what it means to them.

Frederik Peeter's art is of the same high standard as his last book, the excellent "Blue Pills" which I highly recommend. He does a brilliant job of showing each of the characters age rapidly, panel by panel.

"Sandcastle" is a weird and interesting comic book that's definitely good fun to read and has a thought provoking, well written story at its heart. One to pick up if you see it.

[M. Malmierca · Rating 4 out of 5]

En castillo de arena (2010), Peeters (1974-) reúne a un grupo heterogéneo de personas y lo obliga a convivir y a enfrentarse a un horrible futuro. Sus diferentes actitudes y comportamientos muestran lo diferentes que podemos ser los humanos y nos lleva a una única conclusión: más tarde o más temprano todos terminamos de la misma forma.

El texto no abruma y se integra perfectamente con un dibujo más que logrado. Recomendable para quienes no estén buscando historias blandas.

[Seth T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a fan of poetry. Never have been. There’s always been some obstacle between me and my enjoyment of what so many others seem to dig on. That said, there are a couple bits here and there that I’ve enjoyed. A line, a stanza, an idea. I liked a poem an English professor friend of mine wrote because it mentioned Bubo, the mechanical owl from Clash of the Titans. I liked bits of “To His Coy Mistress” because it was absurd and, so, funny. And I liked bits of Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” You know, “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” and all that. I heard the poem in seventh grade and the whole idea resonated with me—the fragility of kingdoms, the temporary nature of everything we are and do.

I grew up on the beach. We moved to the coast when I was three. I stayed near the sand until I was thirty-two. In those nearly three decades, I built a lot of castles, sometimes in the traditional sense, packing sand into shapes and then carving out everything that wasn’t “castle” from the mass. More often though, I crafted what my dad (our master craftsman to whom we were apprenticed) had termed dib-dab castles.[1] And of course, the greatest tragedy of each of our creations was their limited duration. Not one single fortress survived the night and the rising tides. No matter the strength, value, or beauty of the castle. Time and tides swept flat every kingdom. By comparison, Ozymandias’ kingdom was particularly tenacious, leaving those two stone trunks.

Books about the mortality of the race are not rare. In fact, most stories can in some sense be read as an exploration of our perishable nature, of our inevitable expiration. The fact that we will all die pretty much sooner than we’d prefer motivates (even if only subconsciously) so much of our narrative displays—and of course our real-world actions as well. One of the saving graces of the human experience is that without the intervention of some terrible accident (injury or disease or murder), we all get at least six decades to gradually make sense of the whole tragic mess. Those years and years of intermittent contemplation may bring us to peace or push us toward existential horror, and that’s what centuries of literature helps us explore. Sandcastle is no different, and by collapsing those decades and years and months and days and hours of potential meditation into the span of a day or less, authors Frederik Peeters and Pierre Oscar Lévy force the issue rather neatly.

Sandcastle, like most Twilight Zone episodes, is heavily plot driven. The reader’s first pass is going to almost inevitably be wholly invested in the question of Holy Crap What Is Happening?! The book is written and drawn with judicious tension. Lévy and Peeters grab hold of one’s attention deftly and don’t show any concern with offering relief until the book’s final curtain draws closed. It’s an exhilarating ride and well worth the ticket paid.



Partway through, however, readers will begin to sense that the plot, the story, the mystery, and whatever climax awaits is probably beside the point. Sandcastle is thoroughly invested in the human dilemma—that bit of story that takes place in between plot points. Lévy and Peeters offer a neat entry into their discussion of the human end, lubricating the conversation by its relevancy and immediacy. The characters are rather typical, but that allows us to investigate the typicality of their conundrum.

Throughout Sandcastle's paces, it’s never quite clear whether the nature of the book’s MacGuffin is founded in science fiction or magic—though various clues point toward some sort of fantasy sci-fi. Visitors to a secluded lagoon in (probably) Spain find themselves trapped there by mysterious means. More alarmingly, they rather quickly find themselves aging with alacrity—at something like a rate of one year in fifteen minutes. The elderly begin to expire, the children hit puberty early, and the younger adults try to figure out what to do. The authors use the generic character tropes as a means to more immediately bridge the gap between the reader and the question that hangs over each of our lives: What do we do with the fact of our limited time in this sphere?


[He was going to say: without riding a pony]

Even as Sandcastle is itself a grand parable for those with ears to hear, Lévy and Peeters have seen fit to include a couple smaller interior parables for easy lessons and digestion. One is in the nature of the sandcastle itself, titular and obvious, finding itself expressed through several iterations over the course of the tale. Another is a swansong fable about a king who so feared death that he entombed himself to keep the spectre at bay. The careful (or lucky!) reader may discover more breadcrumbs and trails that the authors have laid out, all to the end of better engaging their subject.


[Biology *is* cool!]

The dialogue is simple and maybe sometimes a little awkward. This may be an artifact of translation or it may issue from vacationing foreigners all trying to speak in a common tongue. In the growing children’s case, it may show that while their minds mature and they acquire some of the intelligence natural to their age,[2] there’s still a bit of social awkwardness attached to the absence of experience. The personalities, too, seem immune to aging. The petulant teenage girl still lives to frustrate her parents even at the age of thirty. The five-year-old girl still loves her parents with wide-eyed affection, even well into her newfound adulthood. And the three-year-old boy is as detached from the immediacy of his situation as an adult as he was as a child. And all of the children will sit bound and tight for a good story, even in the midst of imminent death.


[Everybody loves a story!]

Peeters, whose art is full and lively, describes the book as a parable. And it is. Sandcastle is one more opportunity to prompt our thoughts toward consideration of our mortality and if there can be any meaning in it. These parables surround us, whether in Shelley in junior high or in the kingdoms we build as children in the sand, but we are—as a species or as a culture—so prone to forgetfulness and distraction that reminders, even obvious ones, can be welcome. Even for those who believe they know about life and death and afterlife and afterdeath, the privilege to reconsider the limits we’re born with is a gift that should not be squandered or abdicated. We are already, as a people, so very arrogant. Why not take the opportunity to take on the humiliation of mystery?


_______

[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad.]
_______

Footnotes
1) I’ve since learned from Wikipedia that these are probably more commonly called drip castles , though a good number call them dribbled castles. These are constructed by taking a fistful of very wet sand (a slurry) and letting it drip in a controlled manner from the hand. The castles are wonderful and organic and amazing when well-produced. Here’s a basic tutorial:

And yes, dad, I know that if I held the sand so high above it would demolish the castle below. I drew the large space between to illustrate the 3 steps: 1) the hand holding the slurry, 2) the wet sand dripping down, and 3) the drops of sand solidifying into a castle. Window included, just like I was taught (by example).

2) Such as the five-year-old girl who, after having sex well after puberty (a.k.a. lunchtime), discovers bleeding and explains it to her partner as either the natural result of their intercourse or perhaps her period. Not the usual information for five-year-old to have at a ready hand.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this. Peeters, the author of the memoir, Blue Pills, which is about making a baby when one partner is HIV-Positive, a really a fine book, here works with a fictional fable written by Pierre Oscar Levy, about a group of people who find themselves on a beach together, trapped in a kind of bubble, and age a lifetime in a day. What do you do with a life time? What do you try to accomplish in a short time? It's strange and at times disturbing, but really good and strangely moving!

[~:The N:~ · Rating 1 out of 5]

An uncomfortable read. Too much nudity and sexual activities involving (well... technically) children! I was curious about the mystery but in the end there's a lot of unanswered questions.

[Rod Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wasn't very impressed by the M. Night Shyamalan movie, but I was intrigued that it was based on a graphic novel I hadn't read. But this makes even less sense that the movie, sexually objectifies women and children, and includes the telling of a dumb fable about a king building walls against Death. The art is pretty ugly also.

Yuck.

[Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actualización de El ángel exterminador con un contenido alegórico que me funciona mejor cuando menos se trata de subrayar a través del diálogo. Me gustan mucho las viñetas mudas con las que se enfatiza la gravedad de ciertas escenas o la indiferencia del orden natural al drama humano; la maestría alcanzada por Peeters como narrador es incuestionable. Me falla la construcción del carácter claustrofóbico del lugar y la situación vivida. De hecho en bastantes casos la angustia de los personajes la he percibido muy liviana, si realmente llega a manifestarse.

[Emma Ann]

In hindsight, considering how much I struggle with facial recognition, maybe reading a graphic novel in which everyone rapidly ages was not the best idea.

[Stay Fetters · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Do you know what happens after we die? But do we meet our parents again when we die?"

This graphic novel has been on my radar for quite some time now and I finally decided to read this before I watch the M. Night Shyamalan movie with the title, Old.

A fun family vacation turns bizarre as a couple of families witness something they have never seen before. Within a blink of an eye, they all start to age rapidly. Parents become grandparents, grandparents cease to exist, and puberty hits suddenly. Will they figure out a way to save their families? Or will they sink down into the sand?

I have no words for how weird and eerie this was. The story was just bizarre and I found myself really enjoying this. Some parts were more sexually graphic than I thought they would be and I think that made this entire story more creepy.

The art was amazing. I loved the black and white illustrations. I think having this in color would take away from the story. There’s something about the way the art is displayed that really made this creepier.

Sand Castle was insanity in a graphic novel. The story was unique and quite strange. The art was brilliant and made this more unsettling. This was all around a great read.

[RND · Rating 1 out of 5]

A failed experiment. A bunch of people get trapped in some kind of time vortex that never gets explained and is meant to elicit some kind of statement on the temporality of life and human nature but it just never becomes interesting. Characters are either too broad or thin (there's too many, for one thing). What's especially frustrating about this is that the art is SO GOOD. It hurt giving it one star but I couldn't even say it was OK. I felt like my time was wasted and I can only imagine how long it took Peeters to illustrate. I've missed his confident brushwork. He draws the characters aging so well. There's a three-dimensionality to his panels that I really have missed seeing in indie/art black and white comics.

[Maria Cecília Miscow · Rating 2 out of 5]

w t f

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

I 100% picked this up after seeing a film that was being adapted from this graphic novel, also because the concept of it seemed so good!

Multiple groups go to an isolated area of the beach only to find themselves stuck there, with no way out.... and worse everyone is aging rapidly. Sounds completely insane right?!





Wrong, it ended up just being a drag.

[Raina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dude. It's hard to describe this book without spoiling it. Daytrippers arrive at a lake and find a body in the water. Feels like a movie, including some Lostie stuff. Some interesting character studies. And the cover is just stunning (assuming you're good with nips).
It's very European. For amerikans, it's transgressive. It would make a fantastic short film or play, if you could pull off the special effects. In fact, it would make a great acting exercise for a class or somesuch. Hmmm...
I wanted more resolution, but that's probably more about me than about the piece.

[Mangrii · Rating 5 out of 5]

Castillo de arena hasta hace más bien poco pese a que lleva publicado desde 2010. Probablemente también, el trailer de Old (o Tiempo, el nada sutil título en castellano), la nueva película del director M. Night Shyamalan que se estrena a finales de mes te lo haya dado a conocer. Y es que la historia escrita por el director y guionista Pierre Oscar Lévy y dibujada por Frederik Peeters (Píldoras Azules, 2004) es un título desafiante, cautivador y de esos que atrapan desde el primer momento. También, seguramente es uno de esos que no satisfacen a todos los lectores, dado que abundan más las preguntas que las respuestas. Por mis cinco estrellas, creo que esta claro que no pertenezco a este grupo.

Castillo de arena es una de esas historias a las que es mejor entrar sin saber nada. Es más, el trailer de la película en si mismo ya revela demasiado para mi gusto. La premisa principal es que trece personas descubren un cadáver en una pequeña playa (con cierto parecido a Gulpiyuri) ubicada a las afueras de una localidad indeterminada. Un lugar recóndito donde los protagonistas pretendían pasar un apacible día de verano pero que se verá truncado por una serie de inexplicables peculiaridades que impregnan de misterio la zona. Lévy y Peeters conjugan a la perfección el elemento policial con el fantástico para mantenernos en vilo durante las escuetas 100 páginas del cómic.

Tras las viñetas introductorias de Castillo de arena, uno podría pensarse que el cómic girará en torno al misterio del cadáver aparecido o en desvelar las peculiaridades que empantanan la playa. Sin embargo, el cómic se revela tras su lectura como un estudio de dinámica de grupos ante una situación límite. Levy se aprovecha de una cuantiosa variedad y diversidad de personajes, variados en cuanto a edad, sexo, posición social y nacionalidad, para exponer muchas de males y preocupaciones que aqueja nuestra sociedad: racismo, prejuicios, discriminación y lo efímero de nuestro tiempo aquí. Las viñetas de Castillo de arena se ejecutan como un misterio de ciencia ficción pero se leen como un estudio sociológico de lo más interesante.

Como en cualquier situación límite algunos la aceptarán, otros se adaptarán, alguno querrá escapar y otros se desesperarán ante su cruel destino. En un primer momento podemos en El ángel exterminador de Buñuel, pero Castillo de arena se siente más próximo a un episodio de La dimensión desconocida donde a través de una premisa de ciencia ficción reflexiona y explora sobre la humanidad. Y es que, tras una breve introducción de cada grupo de protagonistas, la realidad se va deformando, volviendo la historia más extraña y dejándonos en todo momento con más preguntas que respuestas. El foco siempre está en los personajes y no en lo que ocurre a su alrededor.

Por supuesto, parte de la magia de esta parábola de ciencia ficción la pone el trabajo de Peeters. Su firme trazo en cada viñeta permite abordar la metamorfosis de cada personaje y vivir a su lado el implacable destino que los asola. Alternando caricaturas con rostros más realistas, el paso de las viñetas es poderoso e hipnótico. Pese a su perfecta conjugación, es probable que Castillo de arena sea un comic que no satisfará a todo el mundo. Si vienes buscando respuestas a todo, probablemente no es para ti. Si estas dispuesto a dar el paso y centrarte en el aspecto más sociológico de la premisa, perfecto. Por que el nombre de Castillo de arena no esta puesto al azar, dado que como el mismo y su existencia, se puede dejar llevar por la marea.

Reseña en el blog: https://boywithletters.blogspot.com/2...

[Blake H.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t typically write reviews here, but I feel like I need to after reading a lot of these reviews. I think it says a lot that so many people are giving this a low rating because they were uncomfortable with the sexual themes, but won’t acknowledge why those themes were in there and that they were meant to elicit those emotions.

It’s a story about the reality of how we live our lives and the luxury of having an abundance of time. Human life is marked by and given meaning through a series of events and achievements which come down to social constructs. When you take it down to the most basic level and put it at a rapid pace, a “life well lived” for most of society boils down to; Birth, ageing, sexual maturity, reproduction, and death. If we lived with that at the front of our brain there wouldn’t be room for racism, anger over a wrecked car, worrying about what people are wearing, or ego. We would only care about life experience.

Could they have made more of the time they had left if they weren’t so caught up in their own perceptions of what our socially constructed lives should be? Perhaps, with them gone, the child building new sandcastles on the beach without rhyme, reason, or prejudice will achieve what they couldn’t.

It’s a great, well executed, story. All the answers are there in the pages, but the author doesn’t just hand them to you, you have to find them. If pushing boundaries and themes of sex turn you off to art; why are you even participating in it?

[Andrés Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb! One of the best graphic novels I've read all year. A bit reminiscent of Bunuel's "Exterminating Angel". Tragic and gripping to the last page. Highly recommended.

[Elizabeth A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting graphic novel to read as the weather turns crisper in these northern climes. You know that feeling when you're walking outside in the fall and your breath catches as you glimpse something out the corner of your eye, and then realize it is only falling leaves?

This story is like that, only there is no relief to be had. It is hard to talk about this book without giving away the fun of discovering what it is about, so all I'll say is that it'll make you think about beach days very differently after you read this one. The black and white sketchy art wonderfully evokes the right mood for the story.

If you decide to read this, do not read the book blurbs, just pick it up and read it.

[Selena Winters · Rating 2 out of 5]

One and a half stars. Reading this one in anticipation for the new Shyamalan movie. While it's got a solid premise (and I respect the author for not explaining how people are aging and why), it ultimately doesn't feel like it achieves much in the end. People live, grow old, then pass away. The reason why I gave it a lower rating, however, is that nothing interesting is done with this premise and many things don't make sense within the story's logic. How come some of the children (who start out as three and five-six) understand some very adult concepts and speak like adults by the end, yet a child that starts out as a baby retains its child-like mind well into adulthood?

[Repix Pix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maravilla.

[Madara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somehow M. Night Shyamalan made it better?

[Pablo Mallorquí · Rating 4 out of 5]

Castillo de arena es uno de esos cómics que cuando cierras te deja una sensación de desasosiego así como de haber leído una historia que te hace replantear la forma en que vivimos. Peeters teje una historia existencialista, a raíz de un grupo de bañistas que se encuentran en una playa donde empiezan a envejecer aceleradamente sin poder escapar del enclave. Bajo esta premisa de fantasía, Castillo de arena despliega un fuerte nihilismo. Cual Mito de Sísifo, ese personaje de la mitología griega que es condenado a subir una piedra montaña arriba para que justo antes de llegar a la cima caiga rodando para volver a empezar. Algo de esto hay en el profundo pesimismo de Frederik Peeters.

[Bepina Vragec · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dosta mi se dopalo.

Po rečima scenariste, inspirisan ličnom zabrinutošću pred klimatskim promenama, uplašen problemom novog talasa izumiranja vrsta u prirodi i sa stalnim osećajem da je ugrožena i naša vrsta, a razumevajući činjenicu da je teško “izgraditi svest o toj katastrofi” zbog značajnih disproporcija u “vremenskoj skali”. Naime, ovaj celovremenski (od vajkada i za doveka) problem meri se i uviđa na vremenskoj skali trajanja planete i teško ga je razumeti kao bitnog gledajući iz vizure ‘beznačajno’ kratkog, brzoprolaznog, pojedinačnog ljudskog veka.

Dakle, u kontekstu spoznaje da nas naše kratko trajanje na planeti ograničava da uvidimo katastrofu koja nailazi, Pierre Oscar Lévi piše, a Frederik Peeters crta, priču o jednom danu i grupi turista koji se zatiču zajedno, zarobljeni u izolovanoj prostornoj celini, na plaži, u kojoj se poremetila ‘vremenska osa’ i junaci: i deca i odrasli, doživljavaju fenomen ubrzanog starenja. Život im, dakle, od rođenja do smrti, prolazi za dan što neminovno magnifikuje suštinsko pitanje ‘zbog čega’ živimo i da li se, u tom prekratkom životu, suštinom uopšte bavimo? Stripska forma čitaocu pruža mogućnost da sličice, u značajnoj meri, tumači i ispuni asocijacijama koje autori, po sopstvenom priznanju, nisu ni imali na umu.

Krajnje efektno.