Thesis

I haven't seen a lot of Spanish films, however the synopsis for 'Thesis' was too good for me to turn it down as my 1996 film. I'm also a big fan of Alejandro Amenábar's English language film 'The Others'. This was his debut film and it was a pretty good one considering that.

The thing that holds it back for me from being truly special was just some sloppiness in certain areas. Certain things didn't make sense or were very unrealistic. Also there were some character decisions that simply didn't follow logic and were clearly included only to drive the story forward. I also would've liked if the film had gotten a little more violent and shown more of what was going on.

The things I liked though were plentiful. I was a big fan of the lead character 'Angela'. She was never annoying and very easy to root for. I was invested in her story and wanted her to be alright in the end. I also liked the way the story twisted back and forth and had you guessing right until the end.

I think if this had been made a couple of movies later into Amenábar's career he could've done something really amazing with it. It remains a very good movie nonetheless though and is worth a watch.

This film is an efficient thriller from Spain. It deals with the popular urban legend of "snuff" films (films which depict a real-life murder committed purely for the sake of the film).

The plot involves a young film student Angela (Ana Terrant) who is doing a thesis on cinematic violence. To research her thesis she seeks out the most extreme violence films she can find and accidentally stumbles upon a snuff film depicting the torture and murder of a fellow student from her university. She soon starts investigating the film.

The film is well-made and well-acted with several effective scares and twists. It's main message is that the people who watch violent films are in some way accomplices to the violent acts that they watch. This is an old point that has been made several times before. It also deals with the attraction of the forbidden. For example, in the opening scene, Angela goes to see a dead body on a railway track, partly because she has been told not to. Just when she, and the audience, are about to see the body she is stopped. In another scene, Angela is looking away from the snuff film but takes a quick look when she is told not to.

In Spain, Ángela Márquez (Ana Torrent) is a student of cinema preparing her thesis about the violence in the media. She approaches to the strange student of an another class, Chema (Fele Martínez), who is fan and has a collection of violent movies, to improve her research about this theme. She is receiving orientation of Prof. Figueroa (Miguel Picazo), who finds a `snuff' movie in the library of the university, showing the death of another student, Vanessa, violently killed by a man. While watching this film, Prof. Figueroa dies, and the new professor assigned to give orientation to Ángela, Jorge Castro (Xabier Elorriaga), questions many points in her thesis, inclusive the achievement of information. Meanwhile, Ángela is introduced to Bosco Herranz (Eduardo Noriega), a handsome and nice student of the university, and she suspects he made the violent movie and killed Vanessa. The plot is only resolved in the end of the film. The first film directed by Alejandro Almenábar that I watched was `Abre Los Ojos'. This masterpiece is very unknown here in Brazil. `Abre Los Ojos' is only available on VHS, and it certainly is in my list of the best thirty favorite movies. The common viewers only know the sophisticated and spoiled Hollywood version `Vanilla Sky'. The pretentious, wealthy and ham actor Tom Cruise impaired one of the most original screenplays ever made. Then I watched the marvelous `The Others'. Last month, his first movie, `Thesis', was released on DVD in Brazil. Yesterday I saw this magnificent low budget thriller. A very simple and realistic story, which keeps the viewer in tension until the last scene. There is no clichés, the performance of the cast is very credible, and it is impossible not to like this film. I did not know the meaning of `snuff' films. Based on these three foregoing mentioned movies, I dare to say that Alejandro Almenábar is the best new director of thrillers arose in the 90s. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): `Thesis - Morte Ao Vivo' (`Thesis - Death Live')

First effort by now affirmed Spanish director Amenebar, Tesis starts brilliantly (with a magnificent mix of music and images) and it develops perhaps too slowly and with a unsatisfying ending - at least for a mystery lover - butt it is for a rest a perfect machine explaining how a movie works, how it captures the attention of the viewers. Its aim and final analisys of the movie event and how violence is the basis of today's society could be debatable, but Amenebar has a gift to take good script and turn them in masterpieces.

Tesis is one of the finest Spanish films of the last 10 years. God help us if Tom Cruise remakes this first Amenabar gem as he has Abre los ojos> Vanilla Sky coming soon, blech! Using the iconic gaze of Ana Torrent--see her at 6 in Spirit of the Beehive or at 10 in Cria!-- Amenabar makes an obvious but still gripping statement about modern society's facination with violence in the media. Using phenomenal tracking shots, cross-referenced pov and suspenseful tension to maximum effect, he and his cast convert what could have been a hack DePalma style Hitchcock ripoff into art. An awareness of contemporary Spain certainly helps, as much that we Americans consider passe was fairly new over there at the time (not in 2001, alas.) Fele Martinez at his best, too.