This is the second film of Alejandro Amenábar that I’ve seen. Strike two! One more and he’s out.

Historical Background: Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar was born March 31st, 1972, in Chile. His mother was Spanish and his father Chilean. His family moved to Spain when he was one year of age and he grew up mainly in Madrid. He is best known to American audiences for the film The Others (2001), starring Nicole Kidman. I’ve mentioned elsewhere how much I enjoy Kidman, as an actress, and that The Others was perhaps the only Kidman film that I did not enjoy at all. The Others was preceded by Open Your Eyes (1997), which Hollywood remade as the Tom Cruise vehicle Vanilla Sky. Interestingly, Penelope Cruz appeared in both the original and the remake. Thesis was Amenábar’s debut film, made in 1996, at the tender age of twenty-three. His current film project is Out to Sea (Mar adentro), which is about the Spaniard, Ramon Sampedro, who campaigned over a period of some 30 years for euthanasia.

The Story: Thesis gets off to a strong start. We first encounter the protagonist, Angela (Ana Torrent), riding on a railcar that has had to stop short of the station platform because it has hit a person on the tracks, slicing the individual in half. The passengers are advised to walk to the front car and then disembark. They are also advised not to look in the direction of the tracks, as the sight of the severed individual is quite gory. Nevertheless, many of the passengers stop to gaze, including Angela. What Amenábar is introducing her is akin to the “rubber necking” phenomena of American highways. We all find unnatural violence and gore abhorrent, but some of us also find it irresistibly intriguing when we encounter it.

Angela is a graduate student in film studies at the School for at Madrid University. She decides she will do her thesis on the topic of violence in film, particularly the extreme cases too graphic for theater distribution. She identifies two initial sources to get herself started. First, she speaks to her supervising professor, Dr. Figueroa (Miguel Picazo), and asks if he will obtain videos from the school’s archives illustrating instances of graphic violence. Second, she enlists the aid of a classmate, Chema (Fele Martínez), a rather antisocial, gnomish fellow known to have a somewhat kinky interest in hardcore violent pornography as well as other kinds of gory films. Angela goes to Chema’s room, which is something of a citadel to gore, where he shows her a gruesome film called “Fresh Blood”, showing surgical incisions and real life executions from newsclips. Chema, who has probably never gotten a second look from a female, is quite naturally taken with the lovely Angela. He even offers to pay her for sex, but makes no headway.

Meanwhile, Dr. Figueroa searches through the archives and finds a back room in the far reaches of the basement with untitled films. He picks #001 and takes it to a viewing room to watch. He is shocked by what he sees – so shocked, in fact, that he dies on the spot from either a heart attack or an asthmatic attack. Angela, who had gone looking for her major professor, finds him dead in his seat and immediately removes the film from the video player and takes it with her. She is so fearful about watching it that she initially listens only to the soundtrack without the video. The audio is a girl screaming horrifically. She decides to take the cassette to Chema and asks him to watch it with her. Angela covers her eyes and peeks out between her fingers but Chema has no such problem. He immediately recognizes that what they are watching is a so-called “snuff film” – a live filming of a girl being beaten by a man dressed in black, tortured, murdered, and sliced up. He even recognizes the girl as a former student, Vanessa, who has disappeared two years earlier. Obviously, someone at the school is in the business of making and selling such films – but who? By studying the film closely, Chema notes two things. First, there is evidence that the camera utilized had digital zoom capability. Second, the film was edited, which is not the usual practice in snuff films. Chema believes this indicates that the victim must have mentioned the name of her assailant and that it was therefore someone she knew.

Chema knows that the only kind of camera with digital zoom capability at the time that the film was made was the Sony XT-500. With a little research, Angela discovers that a camera of that type was sold to the school. She searches out old newspaper clippings pertaining to Vanessa’s disappearance. She also spots a student named Bosco (Eduardo Noriega), who carries around a camera of that type. Bosco is an uncommonly handsome fellow who Angela finds irresistibly appealing despite her fear that he might be involved in torturing and killing women. She also learns that Bosco’s girlfriend was a friend of Vanessa.

Angela is assigned a new thesis advisor, Dr. Jorge Castro (Xavier Elorriaga). She immediately becomes suspicious of his interest in certain particulars of her work – which he refers to as an “investigation.” He is known for his philosophy that filmmakers have to give the public what they want – which is mainly sex and violence. Dr. Castro confronts Angela with a video surveillance tape that shows her finding Dr. Figueroa dead and taking the tape from the video player.

That’s the set-up. The rest of the story consists of teasing viewers with who is and who is not involved in the murders and putting Angela into dangerous, frightening situations. The candidates for involvement are a relatively small number: Chema, Bosco, Bosco’s girlfriend, and Dr. Castro are really the only possibilities. It could well be more than one of them. Knowing that at least one of those four is a torturer and murderer, one might think that Angela would go out of her way not be alone with any one of them at any time, but since this is a thriller, she studiously avoids informing the authorities or even her parents and repeatedly puts herself in highly precarious circumstances, as she tries to determine who is guilty. It becomes sort of like a Nancy Drew mystery crossed with a slasher film. Amenábar keeps us guessing until near the end whether either Chema or Bosco or both can be trusted or is a murderer.

Themes: Some reviewers are of the mind that Amenábar is trying, in this film, to moralize about the movie industry catering to the public’s prurient interest in gore. Since the audience for this film is almost entirely those who enjoy thrillers, which by tradition typically involve frightening and gory elements, any such “message” on the part of Amenábar would be a very hard sell – sort of like an animal rights activist handing out leaflets in a bullfighting arena or at a foxhunt. It’s reasonable to assume as well that most reviewers who regularly review films of this nature have a tolerance (if not a taste) for gory violence as well. (Not that it matters, but I plead not guilty, in that respect, since I came to this film specifically for the purpose of seeing Ana Torrent as an adult performer after seeing her childhood performances in Spirit of the Beehive and Cria!.) Toward the end of the film, there is a scene in which the evening news shows portions of one of the snuff films, with their usual pro forma warning about its graphic nature, and viewers are seen glued to the images. Several reviewers take offense at the supposed message from Amenábar, which they claim criticizes the public’s taste for violence. Honestly, I don’t think there is any such message – at least not credibly delivered. It’s obvious that Amenábar is himself pandering to the public’s taste for violence in making Thesis. Amenábar’s so-called moral message would be akin to a father yelling at his son, “Don’t swear! It sounds like f*cking sh*t!” Any apparent message is completely invalidated by the method of delivering it. At most, the issues raised in Thesis in relation to violence in film can be viewed as examples of ironic absurdity.

One reviewer claims that Amenábar’s message is that the viewing public is hypocritical in complaining about violence in films and the media in general because that’s what the public pays to see. The public, however, is not one monolithic entity. Obviously, the one’s complaining are not the same as the ones consuming the gore and violence.

A somewhat more credible theme of Thesis is its illustration of the paradoxical nature of human reactions to gore and violence. We are simultaneous repelled and drawn to it. In Angela’s case, we see that dual response from the very beginning of the film, as she reacts to the severed corpse on the train tracks. We see it in her examination of the video materials for her thesis. We even see it in her feelings about Bosco. She is drawn to him magnetically even while suspecting that he might be dangerous.

Production Values: There are some strengths to this film as well as several distinct weaknesses. The strengths include the opening premise. The idea of a intelligent, rather demure female graduate student doing a thesis on film violence is a great start. Right away, it establishes a high potential for danger and thrills. Another strength is in the development of the characters. Thrillers only work effectively if we care about the person(s) at risk. Ana Torrent gives a marvelous performance as Angela – smart, courageous, beautiful, and vulnerable all at once. Eduardo Noriega, who later starred in Amenábar’s second feature, Open Your Eyes, did a nice job oscillating between socially appealing and creepy. He also appeared in Burnt Money (2000). The homely Fele Martí­nez was superlative in his part reminiscent of “The Beast” in Beauty and the Beast – the ugly exterior and the uncertain interior.

I personally find it highly annoying when protagonists witlessly and repeatedly place themselves in jeopardy. I understand that it’s part and parcel of the thriller genre, but it undermines credibility. Why does Angela, when being chased by a potentially dangerous man, run into vacant rooms rather than remaining in a public place? Why does she pursue her investigation without informing authorities or, at least, making sure someone knows where she is so that she can use that fact as leverage? There are way too many plot holes of this kind. The cinematography is nothing special – somewhat too murky on the whole.

Bottom-Line: For the most part, I don’t care for the thriller genre taken as a whole. I make an exception for a few classics of the genre such as Psycho and The Exorcist. I don’t care for “fear” as an emotion and have no interest in films that exist primarily for that purpose. I don’t object to violence in films – if the violence effectively advances some artistic purpose – but I don’t find violence entertaining in and of itself. I knew I was in trouble with this film within the first ten minutes, but managed to weather the full storm. Afterward, however, as I assessed the damage, I found that I was left mainly with two hours of unpleasant emotions, dissatisfaction with the narrative, and empty thematic content. I concede that the film delivers taut suspense and strong performances.

The DVD version of this film currently available in the United States leaves a lot to be desired. It’s a pretty low quality transfer. The subtitles are the burned-on variety. Extras are limited to an interview with the director and stars, trailers, and biographies. The original film was 125 minutes. The Region 1 DVD is 121 minutes and the Region 2 version just 119 minutes. It is apparently some of the violent segments that have been excised in varying extent for the international distribution. Since this film is about violence in film, such cuts would seem to be especially significant.


*************************************************************************************************
You might want to check out these other excellent films from Spain:

L’Age D’Or
All About My Mother
Belle Epoque
Butterfly
Carmen
Cria!
El
The Grandfather
Labyrinth of Passion
Sex and Lucía
Spirit of the Beehive
Talk to Her
Tie Me Up! Time Me Down!
Tierra
Tristana
Vacas
Viridiana
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age