Tesis (Alejandro Amenábar, 1996)
"Tesis" (Thesis) is Alejandro Amenábar's film debut, released in 1996. It is a suspense thriller set in Universidad Complutense in Madrid and starring renowned Spanish actors Eduardo Noriega, Ana Torrent and Fele Martínez in the main roles. The plot is simple and effective: Ángela is a Media student who is preparing her dissertation and finds a videotape that hides a disturbing secret. As she investigates the content and context in which the video was recorded with the help of fellow student Chema, a gore geek, she puts her life at risk. Tesis has a structure and characters which have always been popular among young audiences. However, the movie managed to fascinate audiences of all ages and situated Amenábar among the most successful directors of the Spanish contemporary film industry. As we dissect the story, the reasons why the film was considered groundbreaking will be evident.
The videotape is a snuff movie, a genre that depicts the actual murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of financial exploitation (Wikipedia), in which a student who disappeared in strange circumstances in the same university is slaughtered in front of the camera. Amenábar exposes a controversial topic in an American styled thriller but in scénarios of the 90s Spanish lifestyle. We rotate among the university's classrooms and corridors, Chema's full horror themed flat, Ángela's flat, the videotapes' library which looks like a dungeon and a few scenes in a popular club at the time. The movie culminates in Noriega's character chalet in the outskirts of Madrid. Everything is familiar yet unknown to us. The characters are stereotypes with a twist, and they interact as in a deceitful ball with various suspects until the plot unravels, in the very end.
As most directors' first feature films, Tesis shows many details of Amenábar's personality and caricatures some of his own experiences while in college. In one scene where Ángela is searching in the database of a store who bought the camera with which the snuff movie was filmed, we can see the director's name among other shoppers. Moreover, Amenábar had a complicated relationship with a teacher that he replicated through the character of Jorge Castro, using even the real name in fiction. All of these curiosities add up to the charm of the film, which nevertheless has some occasional irregularities in the plot and a very dispensable epilogue in a hospital which gives out the typical "it's all over" kind of message.
However, there are some powerful lines in between that offer to the audience the best out of actors who have been underestimated throughout most of their cinematic careers. An example is Eduardo Noriega's Bosco repetitive question, which takes over our subconscious: What colour are my eyes? This haunting sentence stuck in Ángela´s mind adds up to the tension as a perceivable threat tinted with the irony and incitement of Bosco's voice. The scene I will remember the most, however, is the sequence in the tunnel, where Ángela and Chema are trapped while searching for clues and, as a reaction to the girl's anxiety, he starts telling her an Oscar Wilde's story while they run out of matches.
Overall, Tesis is a daunting exercise from a young filmmaker who tackles a taboo issue in a modern and highly addictive way. ⧫⧫⧫⧫/⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫
The videotape is a snuff movie, a genre that depicts the actual murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of financial exploitation (Wikipedia), in which a student who disappeared in strange circumstances in the same university is slaughtered in front of the camera. Amenábar exposes a controversial topic in an American styled thriller but in scénarios of the 90s Spanish lifestyle. We rotate among the university's classrooms and corridors, Chema's full horror themed flat, Ángela's flat, the videotapes' library which looks like a dungeon and a few scenes in a popular club at the time. The movie culminates in Noriega's character chalet in the outskirts of Madrid. Everything is familiar yet unknown to us. The characters are stereotypes with a twist, and they interact as in a deceitful ball with various suspects until the plot unravels, in the very end.
As most directors' first feature films, Tesis shows many details of Amenábar's personality and caricatures some of his own experiences while in college. In one scene where Ángela is searching in the database of a store who bought the camera with which the snuff movie was filmed, we can see the director's name among other shoppers. Moreover, Amenábar had a complicated relationship with a teacher that he replicated through the character of Jorge Castro, using even the real name in fiction. All of these curiosities add up to the charm of the film, which nevertheless has some occasional irregularities in the plot and a very dispensable epilogue in a hospital which gives out the typical "it's all over" kind of message.
However, there are some powerful lines in between that offer to the audience the best out of actors who have been underestimated throughout most of their cinematic careers. An example is Eduardo Noriega's Bosco repetitive question, which takes over our subconscious: What colour are my eyes? This haunting sentence stuck in Ángela´s mind adds up to the tension as a perceivable threat tinted with the irony and incitement of Bosco's voice. The scene I will remember the most, however, is the sequence in the tunnel, where Ángela and Chema are trapped while searching for clues and, as a reaction to the girl's anxiety, he starts telling her an Oscar Wilde's story while they run out of matches.
Overall, Tesis is a daunting exercise from a young filmmaker who tackles a taboo issue in a modern and highly addictive way. ⧫⧫⧫⧫/⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫
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