‘Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes’ Venice Review: Gabriel Azorín Finds Intimacy in the Ruins

Time is a continuous current, ebbing and flowing, in Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes, the debut feature by Spanish filmmaker Gabriel Azorín, shot entirely at the Roman baths of Bande in Galicia. Within this setting, some characters exist in the present, others in the past, and still others in a liminal zone where both times seem to overlap. More than anything, the baths serve as a place of repose: the literal calm after the storm, the landscape after the battle. For some, there has been (or still is) a war; for others, it is simply a tourist excursion. Between those two extremes, relationships—rather than stories—begin to take shape.

The film unfolds calmly, with a measured, enigmatic rhythm. What at first seems to belong to the realm of the fantastic gradually becomes real, only to drift back into the imaginary. Or, at least, into the sensation that different groups inhabit the baths in different eras. The first figures we encounter are a group of young Portuguese men who have crossed the border into Spain to immerse themselves in these hot springs after a «battle». But their conversations—about streamers, YouTubers, and online gaming—soon reveal that the battle was virtual, a digital game like Ancient Wars in which they all took part. Azorín leaves them behind for a moment to follow another group: tourists led through the ruins by a guide who explains their historical significance.

The film itself truly begins, however, as dusk falls and the young friends relax in the water, opening up in intimate conversation. In the darkness, under the stars, they voice the fears, longings, and unspoken secrets that can only be shared in such a suspended space. António (Santiago Mateus) and Jota (António Gouveia) linger in the baths, confessing their emotions and vulnerabilities to one another.

They are not alone. In another time, perhaps centuries earlier in the aftermath of an epic battle, soldiers weary from real war undergo similar experiences. One man has lost a leg and is helped into the water by his comrades. Two others, Aurelius (Oussama Asfaraah) and Pompey (Pavel Čemerikić), share a conversation that echoes the modern one: two men articulating their sensations, their fears, and the anxiety of losing their bond with each other.

Apart from a handful of visual gestures—astronomical studies of constellations, a few aerial shots—Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes remains close to the baths themselves, to the water, to the faces and bodies of its protagonists. From its very title it gestures toward the Sacred Band of Thebes, the legendary Greek battalion composed of pairs of male lovers who defeated Sparta in several battles. That homoerotic current runs throughout the film, not as its sole concern, but as part of its presentation of the baths as a space where men, who are rarely invited to confess such feelings, find themselves drawn to do so.

A meditative work aligned with the more experimental and lyrical cinema of contemporary Galicia, Azorín’s debut is at once a film about friendship, about confession, and about the expressive possibilities of cinema when it roots itself in elemental forces: earth, water, light and shadow. “I wanted to talk about my friendships with other men,” Azorín said in a recent interview. “Intimacy, conversation, speaking about important things, or showing vulnerability—it seems these are not meant for male characters. But I wanted to portray that side, to explore male friendship and reveal its vulnerability.” That is precisely what Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes achieves: a poetic refuge, a place of rest and release, a way of laying down the burdens of battle—whether real or metaphorical—and simply inhabiting the fragile beauty of being.