For the new Bird Box spin-off film, Bird Box Barcelona, which is set at the same period
as the original film, we are returning to the post-apocalyptic world of Bird Box.
The new film centres on Sebastián (Mario Casas) and his daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard)
as they struggle to stay away from the dangerous invisible monsters.
They join forces with certain survivors along the road, including Octavio (Diego Calva),
Sofia (Naila Schuberth), and Claire (Georgina Campbell).
Although Sebastián has a secret and Anna is not who she seems to be, the dynamics of
the film are radically altered.
It sounds like the first movie again, only this time it's set in Barcelona.
We're here to assist by clarifying everything, though, in case you were too busy cowering
under a pillow.
Don't read on unless you've seen Bird Box Barcelona since there will be major spoilers.
What has become of Anna?
In Bird Box Barcelona, it becomes clear early on that Sebastián isn't genuinely attempting
to flee the animals.
As a "seer" like Gary (Tom Hollander) in the first film, he has previously seen the monsters
and feels it is his duty to reveal them to every survivor.
Every time he does, Sebastián notices a ball of light emerging from the most recent victim
of the creatures, which he interprets as proof that he'saved' them.
Even though Anna isn't his daughter, he believes everything she says to be true.
Similar to the original film, Bird Box Barcelona flashes back to the beginning of the end of
the world.
When Padre Esteban (Leonardo Sbaraglia) captures them, he compels them to see, despite Sebastián's
first efforts to keep Anna safe.
Sebastián perceives the entities as "angels," while Anna commits herself after viewing them.
Sebastián began carrying out his ostensibly noble mission to show everyone what they're
missing by donning blindfolds as soon as he spotted Anna standing by his side once more.
But as the film progresses, he starts to doubt that the monsters are what they seem to be.
Though it takes him killing the majority of the survivors he is with before he realises
this.
Sebastián, however, doesn't notice Octavio's light when he fools Octavio into seeing the
monsters.
Suppose I'm not the shepherd after all.
What if I'm the wolf? he asks 'Anna'.
When Claire realises what Sebastián did to Octavio, she flees with Sofia, but he follows
them.
Sebastián attempts to undo Sofia's blindfold when Claire is rendered unconscious after
falling into a piece of scaffolding but stops himself.
Then he swears to drive Claire and Sofia to Montjuc, where Sofia was going with her mother
before they became separated, as a place of safety.
Claire doesn't fully trust him, which is understandable, but he now understands who Anna truly is:
the supernatural beings manipulating his thoughts.
Grief may destroy you.
He says to Claire, "I believed I was chosen, but I was only damaged.
He had to lead several people to their deaths in order to figure it out, but at least he
succeeded, we think.
Padre Esteban and his group of disciples arrive as they make their way to the tramway that
will transport them to Montjuc.
Sebastián deters them so that Claire and Sofia may board the tram and travel to safety,
but he pays the price by stabbing himself and Padre Esteban with a metal stick.
When Claire and Sofia arrive in Montjuc, the military welcomes them.
In the last moments, it is revealed that the military is attempting to develop a cure utilising
the DNA of the seers as "the key to creating immunity."
Sofia is reunited with her mother.
But does Bird Box Barcelona provide any new information about these invisible beings that
the original film did not?
Which monsters are they?
Although the monsters' appearance is still a mystery in Bird Box Barcelona, it does develop
the mythos around them that was introduced in the previous film.
They manifest as "your worst fears, your deepest sadness, or your greatest loss," according
to Bird Box.
In the new film, Octavio explains this by drawing a comparison between it and the observer
effect, in which something transforms as you look at it but might have been anything before.
If these entities are somehow quantum beings, perhaps they don't even have a stable state.
Perhaps they are always altering and shifting until we hear or see them, at which point
they take on our characteristics.
He adds, "Our worries, our anguish, our suffering.
Sebastián first perceives them as angels for this reason, although another seer he
encounters perceives them as extraterrestrials who will "take us to the stars."
To the spectator, the creatures may literally take on any form, and depending on what shape
they adopt, whether that individual commits suicide or develops into a "seer" is determined.
Sebastián hears Claire tell him, "Those creatures, they burrow into our minds.
They take our anxieties and ideas and pervert them.
They transform them into a tool for controlling you.
For Sebastián, this indicates that the monsters pose as Anna because they know that if she
tells him about their objective, he'll believe it and become their dedicated follower.
For Claire, this means that the creatures are trying to influence her by imitating her
deceased brother.
However, it's possible that by leaving "seers" about, the creatures may bring about their
own destruction.
The army doctor informs Claire that they are searching for a genetic change in a seer's
DNA when she arrives at Montjuc.
Extreme levels of stress "can sometimes affect people's DNA, even change it," the doctor
says.
Sebastián experienced this, and his "extreme form" of stress was the sorrow over his daughter's
passing.
The military has speculated that if all seers have the same "epigenetic alteration," this
finding may lead to a means of developing immunity to the impacts of the monsters.
They've already begun working with rats in their studies, employing a substance known
as a "seer compound" that lets them view the animals for 48 seconds before they commit
themselves.
Given that Bird Box Barcelona finishes more than four years before Bird Box, when the
world was still very chaotic, it's plausible that the military's tests weren't precisely
a success.
(Perhaps it just hadn't arrived in the US by that time.)
However, if a sequel to Bird Box is planned, this will undoubtedly be a story component
that is developed further.