La ardilla roja

Lisa (Emma Suarez) is in a motorcycle accident and loses her memory. Jay (Nancho Nova) finds her and calls the ambulance. He then pretends to be her boyfriend, convincing her and the doctors of this. They disappear on holiday together to the Red Squirrel camp site where memories steadily flow out and all is not what it seems.

This starts innocently - you're pretty sure that you understand what's going on (Jay is trying to replace his lost girlfriend by naming this lose woman that she is his Lisa and giving her all the memories he wants). However as the film goes on it becomes less clear. The director fills the film with flashbacks of Jay's memories of his girlfriend and his music video, and flashbacks of Lisa's memories combined with a squirrel eyes view of the forest.

As the film continues these flashbacks etc are continually intercut with the main film and separate elements (the hit and run driver, the night time radio slots, the doctor) all get tied into the main story. During the film it's all very exhilarating because you don't fully understand what's going on but you know that all the elements are coming together towards an amazing conclusion. Unfortunately it doesn't deliver at the end - as the strands start to come together the film does start to link up - but it links up with unbelievable, coincidental connections. Rather than having a thrilling tidy conclusion in collapses into symbolism and abstract images and actions.

Emma Suarez steals the show as the complex Lisa, she manages to be believable even when the other actors and surrounding situations seem ridiculous. The director does an excellent job injecting a sense of urgency and confusion into a seemingly straight forward story. Although it does being meaningless arty rubbish in the last 20 minutes, everything that goes before is a consistently visually amazing story.

This is definitely worth watching once - but the final 20 minutes will either frustrate you (if you like logical meaningful endings) or amaze you (if you're into abstract arty stuff!).

'The Red Squirrel' starts off like a Hitchcockian thriller, but soon becomes more complex and difficult to categorize. By the end of this utterly fascinating movie I would be hard pressed to label it. "A mystery" and "a love story" don't give you the whole picture. Just see it for yourself if you want something challenging and original. I know nothing about writer/director Julio Medem, but after watching this film I will rectify that as soon as possible! The basic plot is fairly simple - a washed up pop star contemplates suicide. Before he can do so he witnesses a road accident, a motorbike crash. A young girl is injured slightly but appears to be amnesiac. On the spur of the moment he tells her that he is her boyfriend and invents a name for her (Lisa, his ex-girlfriend, who he still loves). He visits her as she recuperates in hospital, and as it looks more and more likely that he will be found out, he smuggles her out and takes her on a camping holiday. Then things get a bit strange... The plot as I said is fairly simple, but the movie is not. I was hooked from the opening scenes and was fascinated until the very end. I really enjoyed this movie and highly recommend it.

Julio Medem's 'La Ardilla Roja' follows the same path of surrealism as his previous film 'Vacas'. Intricately layered and open to interpretation, Medem's films are a class of their own. Of course he is influenced by many great filmmakers like Hitchcock, Buñuel and the Coen Brothers, to name a few, and artists like Salvador Dalì and he is not ashamed to show it in his unique films. The story starts off simple enough and then it progresses into something more complicated entangling itself in a psychological drama, a mystery thriller, dark comedy, erotica and surrealism. While the likes of Almodovar have gained recognition in the world cinema circuit, I wonder why Julio Medem still remains less known.

Made with a modest budget, 'La Ardilla Roja' is skillfully executed. The cinematography, lighting and visuals create a very recognizable world and yet the way it's presented contributes to the element of surrealism. The score is used efficiently and the acting is superb, especially that of Emma Suárez, Nancho Novo and María Barranco.

His proceeding releases only prove that Julio Medem is getting better and better with each film. 'La Ardilla Roja' is not one to be missed

Yours truly has seen lots and lots of movie, but very few impressed me with sheer intelligence as this one - a gem where you feel every single shot has its real meaning and, more important, the filmmaker think his audience is clever enough to understand what's going on without having it rammed in his/her face. When you only know the title and doesn't know a thing about the plot (as I did when I saw this one at the Gérardmer film festival), you feel stunned, aghast, thrilled, surprised, and then you settle for the ride. Comedy, wit, intelligence (again), romance, mystery, emotion, this one has everything that makes us love movie. Unless you only want special effects and billion-dollars no-brainers, I can't see how this movie can fail to ignite passion. If there actually is justice in this world, Julio Medem will someday be recognised as maybe the most underrated filmmaker of our times - and he hasn't said his last word yet. A masterpiece to be enjoyed again… and again… and again

The Spanish version of Vertigo, this story is more than meets the eye. The plot if very much one sided. Although you do great a nice switch at the end of the movie, the journey getting there is better. A sweet ending with not much to it, the audience is given a happy ending like in much fiction. Emma Suarez is amazing. She steals every scene with her seduction. From the start of the movie, it appears that Emma plays the victim. As the story unfolds, she becomes the aggressor in more ways than one.