Dir. Juan Antonio Bayona 2007.
Spoiler warning: don't read any further if you haven't seen the film (and want to).
Overall, this is an enjoyable film and I recommend it. However, from a more detailed perspective there were a few things in disparity that stopped it being a classic for me. The movie calls itself a horror film. Horror unsettles, upsets, and emotionally maims you aggressively (or it should). This films' secret is that it really isn't a horror film. It's more like a chiller. A twist-in-the-tail story that actually ends in a touching, moving, emotional place. It's like a feature length episode of Tales of the Unexpected, shot like a commercial and in Spanish. Looking at it from that angle makes much more sense to me and actually allows me to enjoy the film an awful lot more.
My other point of disparity is not only part of this film, it's also a part of modern filmmaking in general. It's about how films look that are made by commercials directors. Sure, there are always anomalies but I feel that films made by commercials directors seem to have something missing from their soul. It's hard to get them to linger on a shot and the look of the films are often so slick as to be unrelatable to reality. It is possible to make an image too polished. I'd like to see more films that look a bit rough around the edges. For me it's less about it looking like a car advert and more about communicating something through storytelling. Characters and story are everything. The rest of it is less important.
Oh and another thing, they always seem to get their actors to watch old films in preparation. It may cut production costs, giving actors a shorthand (who knows?!) but I think it inhibits anything new. Don't you think that the best place to take inspiration is from inside yourself and not to watch Close Encounters, for example, when you want a certain mood? Don't you think that is just lazy? I read that Bayona did just that. Not a major crime, is it? But I think it could stop actors trusting themselves and their instincts when confronted with a director who wants a mood from film X and a performance similar to the one in film Y and the look and feel of film Z.
Going back to the film, it had some great moments, some surprising and some shocking and I felt genuine emotion. I was in tears at the end.
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dude - firstly is there a few paragraphs missing? u say there are spoilers.. there arent the movie is nto actually reviewed. just the idea of shooting movies? hence why i think there are a few paragraphs missing. i loved the film. my main problem was the ending. Would she really kill herself? - leave her husband.. thinking about it though she was racked with guilt by shutting him in the secret room - by misake of course. if u watch again when she is walking in the house not long after her son has gone missing u hear the crashing sound. ie the little one falling down the collapsing stairs and to his death!!
ReplyDeleteNothing missing. My spoilers are my criticisms, so I suppose I didn't really need to include that warning. It's pretty off-the-cuff writing, so apologies ;-)
ReplyDeleteThink about her situation. She has a deep emotional link to the building and the events from her childhood. All the other kids died except her. Her adopted son is a projection of herself: she loves him in a way she wishes she had been loved. His death signified, in her mind, a failure on her part to look after him and love him, and a repeat of the events of the past.
In depression and suicides escalation plays a big part and that is what's happened here.
ha ha.. i i was not being an arse in my comments.. mate it s great reivew anyhow....
ReplyDeleteyou are right about her emotional connection. i loved the film.. better connection than Let the right on In?