When flaky novelist Mario turns up one day at the school where Daniel teaches, the educator is convinced the writer is a spirit from his repressed past, buried deep in his subconscious. As children, the two might almost have been brothers. But the marriage between Daniel’s father and Mario’s mother never materialized.
This unexpected re-encounter brings both families together. When Mario slits his wrists and dies, Daniel and his wife Laura provide a home for the dead man’s daughter. Laura, who is childless, loves the girl from the moment they meet, but Daniel feels increasingly nervous around her. The demons of his past guilt continue to torment him. Daniel suffers agonies – until things come to a head during a show down in the mountains.
Spanish director Antonio Chavarrías’ work toys with the conventions of the psychological thriller. With its haunting music, surreal dream sequences and earthy-coloured natural locations, this disconcerting, fragmentary fable creates an ominous atmosphere that reveals the director’s debt to masterful cineaste, Alfred Hitchcock. –Berlinale
Films by Petzold, the Tavianis, Chavarrías, Schmid and Wang.
