La ardilla roja

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.

'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.

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!).

While struggling to have courage to jump off from a bridge to commit suicide, the musician Jota (Nancho Novo) that misses his girlfriend witnesses an accident with a motorcycle, with the rider falling down on the beach. Jota helps the unknown woman that has amnesia and goes in the ambulance with her to the hospital. Jota invents her name, calling her Lisa (Emma Suárez), and also that they have been living together for four years in his apartment nearby the beach. On the next morning, Jota visits Lisa, who is in session with the psychologist; then he leaves the hospital with her telling that she was discharged. Jota reinvents Lisa's past and travels with her to the camping "La Ardilla Roja", where they befriend the family of a taxi driver. When a stranger comes to the camping claiming that Lisa's name is Sophia indeed and that he is her husband, Jota feels trapped in his lies and questions whether Sophia has had amnesia.

"La Ardilla Roja" is a weird and entertaining love story, with an original and surrealistic screenplay and bizarre characters and situations. The gorgeous Emma Suárez has a stunning performance and shows a great chemistry with the odd and unusual Jota, performed by Nancho Novo. The climax with the arrival of Felix to the camp site is strange and a little disappointing, but the happy end fits well to the plot. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Esquilo Vermelho" ("The Red Squirrel")

Great movie. It grabs you from the start, exciting...a bit obvious at some moments, lots of symbolism, power plays and psychological projections. I saw the movie on video, but I believe this one is definitely one for the big screen. It is enchanting. The end of the movie is a little bit farfetched and overdone (unlike the better Tierra, Los Amantes and Sex and Lucia (my personal favorite)) but this is only a minor comment.

Great to know that Medem will be delivering more inspiring movies :-)))

9 out of 10.