Fausto 5.0

It's Faust. If you know the story Marlowe and Goethe made famous, well this ain't it. But it's about the same thing -- the whole What Price My Soul thing. Does meaning well absolve us?

This movie is all about the nature of redemption and what price we would put on our soul. In the Goethe's version it's to save the babe he knocked up from being beheaded for killing the baby at birth. This guy's an MD -- that should be your clue.

It's got plenty of lurid stuff, human failings, falling into the pit of depravity and despair that's required of a tragedy. Is there redemption? That's what makes a story worth my time any day.

This film is not the greatest but it beats the hell (pun intended) out of that lame Pacino/ Keanu Devil's Advocate. I mean we can all see a LAWYER as the devil's pawn but the selfless head of a clinic for the terminally ill? And while we don't get Sex Goddess Charlize Theron as sole redeeming quality, we do get sex with the devil's own daughter, and that's got to be hot.

It's the prurient lurid stuff that makes me downgrade it from "Damned Good" to "Interresting". I like to keep those two separate. I like lurid and prurient movies like House of 1000 Corpses and examination of the soul stuff like Mystic River. But trying to mix it like these boys do in Fausto 5.0 is distracting to me. It's like if Rob Zombie got religion and decided to take on Goethe and Marlow and delve the deeper meaning of God the Devil and the Soul while listening to lots of industrial goth techno dance music.

All in all, I thought it was worth while watching and might rent it again some time, but it will probably not become part of my permanent collection.

The umpteenth version of a well-known story (check the title which is the hero's name).it begins well enough,but after an half-hour,it's run of the mill pact with the devil.The actor playing Rilla the "survivor" obviously tries to ape De Niro's style in "Angel Heart".But whereas Parker's work had a solid screenplay,this Spanish story falls apart in the second third and fails totally to convince in one of the most disappointing conclusions a horror movie has ever offered.The movie fills its quota of sex ,"surgery" and gore .Every Spanish director is not Amenabar,by a long shot.I must confess I have not understood the meaning of 5.0.....if it has one of course.

Oh, How I wish all horror movies would be like Fausto 5.0 The movie reminded me of Jackob's Ladder, It was beautifully arranged and has a breathtaking scenes. It's a tale about a doctor, who specializes in terminal patients. On his way to a medical convention, he runs into a strange David lynch kind of character who keeps following him. From there we go through a series of half dream half reality occurrences which also has the most artistic sex scene I've ever scene.

The movie isn't too scary, It's the atmosphere which is creepy. The soundtrack also adds to the movie peak points. This movie is a must for every Lynch or Jackob's Ladder fans. Go and see it

As disturbing as Los Sin Nombre but in my point of view much better as for the choice of actors and the way it was shot. I found it dark but funny. Its is explicit in its violence but yet it always serve the story. Santos' sense of humor is sick but brilliant. I definitely recommend it.

I had a fair idea of what i was looking for, coming to this film. This was a collaborative work, entangled between people coming from films, and people coming from live performances. La fura dels baus are, at the same time, a very interesting group, of people who try to extend and expand the notions of live performance and, more interesting, the notions of interaction with an audience. Basically, their trick is to increase the engagement of people, by bringing them closer to stage, actually, taking the stage to people sitting in front of it.

So i thought i was going to see something similar, regarding film. New ways to engage, a novel way to tell a story that includes the audience, while meaning something.

But film is a total different medium. Different tools, different tricks, different outcome.

The inventiveness and passion you get when watching a performance is here fully replaced by the commitment to build a world, over the real world, that could accommodate the story of the film.

So, we are given a city as if it was an artistic intervention, with all the implied stylization and artificiality. Wrapped Christo-like building, with its interior being actually that of a museum. Transformation of places in the city, by placing groups of people that just don't belong there. The catacombs of the hospital, a good use of space.

This is all great, but the problems of the film begin here. Although this world is perfectly presented, considering what you can do with a city to make it (more) suitable for the story you're telling, this isn't enough to pull us into the film with the same intensity that we are pulled into a show by La Fura. So, despite the effort, the film doesn't leverage the live performances, and i think that was intended.

But you get Barcelona, a fairly interesting one, and we get some great sequences, although disconnected. Of those, the one in the hospital catacombs (which is fundamental in the story) is the best.

My opinion: 3/5

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