L'écureuil rouge

Yours truly has seen lots and lots of movie, but very few impressed me with sheer intelligence as this one - a gem where you feel every single shot has its real meaning and, more important, the filmmaker think his audience is clever enough to understand what's going on without having it rammed in his/her face. When you only know the title and doesn't know a thing about the plot (as I did when I saw this one at the Gérardmer film festival), you feel stunned, aghast, thrilled, surprised, and then you settle for the ride. Comedy, wit, intelligence (again), romance, mystery, emotion, this one has everything that makes us love movie. Unless you only want special effects and billion-dollars no-brainers, I can't see how this movie can fail to ignite passion. If there actually is justice in this world, Julio Medem will someday be recognised as maybe the most underrated filmmaker of our times - and he hasn't said his last word yet. A masterpiece to be enjoyed again… and again… and again

Having seen Julio Medem's "Vacas", I was familiar with the directors style, humour and pace. Although in an entirely different setting, this film does share some of these traits.

I did enjoy watching this film, and was intrigued from beginning to end - I found the two main characters particularly interesting. However, I don't think it all holds together. The mystery and suspense behind Lisa's past is built up falsely - it certainly was not a major shock in the end as it had been pointed to frequently in the course of the film. A few questions regarding her past still remain unanswered at the end.

Of course, these are criticisms of the plot - and not of the film as a whole. Yet this film was a plot driven one, the revelation not as earth-shattering as Julio Medem had probably intended. As for romance...? I find Jay's pretenses and "Lisa's" actions little ground for true romance.

I hope I am not being too critical - perhaps I was expecting more to be resolved. I would certainly not like to put anyone off seeing this film. It was wonderfully filmed and I am sure I will have a look at it again, but in the end, I believe it is an inferior work to Julio Medem's earlier film, "Vacas".

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!).

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 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.