if you're watching it for the very first time you need to remember that this was a very low budget movie made in Spain in 1996... I'm pointing this out because I had very high expectations. :::S P O I L E R A L E R T ::: for me the second hour of the film was just unbearable, cheesy and boring... I was counting the minutes for it to end.
***1/2 Very good effort for a first film. A sensitive subject, three excellent actors and some great scenes that already announced the coming of a new auteur among us. The encounter between Angela and Chema at the cafeteria while both characters are listening to their walkmen (Hard Rock for Chema and classical music for Angela) is a perfect example of the way cinema may manipulate an audience. Recommended.
While doing a thesis about violence, Ángela finds a snuff video where a girl which was a former student in her faculty is tortured to death. The violence is more implicit than explicit in this wonderfully directed low budget film, and shows the potential of the director that brought us "Open your eyes", "The others" and "the sea inside"...
La vi por primera vez antes de entrar en la facultad dónde se rodó... y me encantó. Te engancha desde el primer minuto por el halo de misterio que rodea a la trama. Sus personajes, que parecen que todos tienen algo que ocultar, son una de las bazas de la primera película como director de Alejandro Amenábar. Por cierto, su nombre aparece en una de las bases de datos de la película.
I love the mystery & The tension it built. And the most fascinating thing is how this movie explore possibilities of hows, whos, and whens. the kinda movie that kept you guessing til the end, and made you think its predictable and end up being not.
A great whodunnit about the snuff-movies myth. entertaining and suspenseful.