O Esquilo vermelho

Intense as well as offbeat/intriguing drama with top-notch acting , superb photography and sensitive soundtrack . This brooding picture contains a magnificent performance by a beautiful woman , Emma Suarez , and a good support cast full of prestigious players giving right performances . It deals with Sofia (Emma Suarez) who suffers a motorcycle accident and loses her memory . Jota (Nanco Novo) is a musician, (Susana Gimenez) affected when misses his girlfriend , as he witnesses a motorcycle accident . When he meets Sofia who suffers amnesia , he then takes advantage of the deeds and reinvents her name as Lisa and her life according to his desires . Sofia/Lisa impacts on a great scale about Jota's life . As he makes up a name for her and tells the doctors (Ana Gracia , Txema Blasco , Cheta Lera) that they live together as a couple for several years . Later on , they go to a holiday camping and become involved with a couple called Antón (Karra Elejalde), a cabman , Carmen (María Barranco) and their children . After that , there appears a strange character named Felix (Carmelo Gómez) related to her .

Spanish production with fine acting , colorful cinematography , excellently interpreted and rousing score by Alberto Iglesias . Julio Medem directed the film for Sogetel and producer Enrique López Lavigne and it was released in 1993 . Set in San Sebastian or Donostia and at a lagoon in Pelayos De Presa , this interesting and thought-provoking film dealing with a story of solitary people , as a strange , unsettling young , well played by Nancho Novo , desperate after separating from his girlfriend , as well as a twenty-five-years-old girl riding a motorcycle and falling off a bridge , subsequently suffering amnesia , being splendidly performed by Emma Suarez . The picture was considered by the prestigious ¨Daily Telegraph¨ : as taut and intricate as anything by Alfred Hitchcock . This is a thrilling , exciting , deliberate though magnetic drama . It contains marvelous photography , breathtaking musical score and enjoyable production design . It is a riveting film though sometimes a little boring , slow-pace and overlong . Anyway, the film is interesting , thematically intriguing and strange ; Medem has his own style of telling a story . Very good support cast such as Maria Barranco , Chete Lera , Cristina Marcos ,Txema Blasco , Ana Gracia , Monica Molina and Karra Elejalde , Julio Medem's ordinary . Thrilling as well as sensitive musical score mirroring well the scenery, its people and the story line, it was superbly composed by several times Oscar nominated Alberto Iglesias , Julio Medem's usual . In addition , a spotless pictorial cinematography by Gonzalo Fernandez and a willingness , almost perfect of the elements of each shot , every sequence , every space ; being rightly filmed on location in Pelayos De la Presa, El Pardo , San Martín Valdeiglesias, Madrid, Usanos, Guadalajara and San Sebastián, Guipúzcoa, País Vasco .

The motion picture was well produced by Fernado Garcillan and originally directed by Julio Medem ; this his second movie, "Ardilla Roja" or ¨The red squirrel¨ released in 1993, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and it confirmed Medem's talents and won prizes in Fort Lauderdale, Bogota and Bucarest . Medem had been making short movies with a super-8 camera owned by his father until he received a call from a new production company called Sogetel and executive producers Fernando de Garcillán , José Luis Olaizola , Enrique López Lavigne . They were interested in his script titled "Vacas" . It won the Goya Award from the Spanish academy for best new director, and won prizes in the festivals of Tokyo, Torino and Alexandria. In 1998 Medem released " The lovers of the Polar Circle ," considered his best movie by most of his fans . It also became a box-office hit with more than one million spectators in Spain and was also released worldwide. In 2001 his fourth movie, "Lucia and sex ," became a huge hit and began the career of actress Paz Vega who won the Goya for best new actress . Although in 2003 failed with the release , "The Basque ball" , a documentary that portrays the phenomenon of nationalism and terrorism in the Basque Country of northern Spain , it was very polemical and partial . In 2007 directed the flop ¨Caotica Ana¨ and in 2010 , ¨Room in Rome¨, a successful though with not sense film , plenty of nudism and only starred by two gorgeous naked girls . Julio Medem is for sure one of the the most important and original Spanish filmmaker. Well worth watching if you get the chance .

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.

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.

'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!).