The best films are often seen by mistake.

Unexpectedly.

Beyond Italian TV filled with crowds of men taking part in an election night bukkake - money shot after exit poll money shot in a head2head race - a French channel has just started showing a Spanish film.

I sit in Italy watching a Spanish-language film with French subtitles. I love Europe. A certain kind at least.

The film is about a group of petty criminals, a violent crook, a dragon-chasing junkie. A robbery. Betrayal. The young daughter of a prostitute, that ends up on the run with the young woman thief. In search of a father who sings flamenco.

The film is a marvellous road movie that heads south out of Madrid and unfolds in Andalucia. It is a colour-drenched noir. It is a story of rejection and friendship and loneliness and love. Un cante hondo a la vida.

The street aesthetics of a Spanish underclass are rendered with detailed description. The empty roads and olive groves and salt mines and wind farms. The long thin glass filled with coke and rum. Tangiers like Tijuana, and Tarifa under the sun.

A matriarchal ending.