Thesis - Morte ao Vivo

A promising director: it's what I thought after the screening of Amenabar's first feature. There is a compelling story told with bright creative ideas.

Eventually I felt the first part of the movie was really great and the following went a little under. Sure, it is more difficult to bring all sorts of things together after you built up an exciting suspense. Still you don't feel bored once you are getting to know what it is really all about, but you got more free 'RAM space' to think it over. Perhaps accelerating the rhythm would have kept Tesis on the same high level of suspense. Perhaps it would have been a mistake to change the pace.

Among things you can take away with you is the background theme about our attraction for the morbid. It opens and closes the movie and really gives it one further dimension - one could say it's a bit didactical but it's a least flaw for a first major effort.

Next step Senor Amenabar: a little less personal work (as compared with the experimental Abre los ojos) but still something personal (The Others is the least interesting work so far).

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.

"Tesis" is not only a tantalizing Horror Thriller, but is also an intelligent study of people's fascination with death and the imagery of death. Several movies about the topic of snuff films have come up in the last several years (8 MM, for example), this one is definitely the best.

Angela is a young woman who is writing a thesis on violence in the media, in order to get her degree in communication science. Doing research, she gets to know Chema, a fellow student who is obsessed with violent movies. Angela finds a snuff video of a girl tortured to death, Chema recognizes the girl as a former student from their school, who disappeared several years ago. Angela and Chema get themselves into great danger, trying to find out who killed the girl.

Thrilling from the first to the last minute, and sometimes quite shocking and disturbing, "Tesis" is a movie that will definitely not disappoint you if you're looking for suspense. But not only is the movie thrilling and entertaining it also makes some very interesting points in the questions why people are fascinated with death and violence, what the effects of fascination with violence are and how media are dealing with it. I'll never forget the beginning of the movie, when a suicide occurs in the Madrid subway and Angela, although she doesn't want to be 'fascinated with violence', can't help but try to get a look at the dead body.

The acting in the movie is very good, specially Ana Torrent as Angela and Fele Martínez as Chema. A good cinematography supports the suspense and the thrilling atmosphere. Alejandro Amenábar did a great job writing and directing this movie, one of the most thrilling of the 90's. A great horror thriller, researching people's fascination with violence and death, 'Tesis' is disturbing, terrifying and intelligent! 8 out of 10!

This suspenseful movie concerns about Angela(Ana Torrent), she's an university student at a journalism university in Madrid. She comes across a snuff movie that shows a girl being tortured and killed. She befriends Chema(Fele Martinez), a young completely obsessed with violent films. They find out that the girl was an university at their school and her former fiancé named Bosco(Eduardo Noriega) holds a camera similar to the snuff's shooting. They early discover the killing was actually filmed on campus.

The motion picture displays genuine chills, suspense, mystery and dark atmosphere with a shocker finale . Packs excellent creation of tension, thriller, terror , emotions and brief gore. It's an exciting, bizarre film; skillfully proceeded by Alejandro Amenabar and turns out to one of the most unusual Spaniard horror movie ever made and certainly one of the most unsettling. Plenty of shocks, the eerie images deliver the exciting united a creepy score by Amenabar, also screenwriter, along with Mateo Gil, of the thrilling plot. Intelligent edition, special use of murky sets and slick utilization of shock images make this one, a magnificent terror film. Gloomy and sombre cinematography by Hans Burman which heightens the suspense. The picture is well directed by Amenabar in his first movie. After he achieved various hits, such as : 'Open your ears, The others and Mar adentro' . Rating : Better than average.

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.