El embrujo de Shanghai

Fernando Trueba knows how to tell a story. And more importantly for cinema lovers, he also knows how to make it visually compelling. The story might be a bit twisted, you might have a bit of difficulty to follow exactly what's going on, but the movie is still worth watching. The cast is superb. Fernando Fernán Gomez is great as the old captain who's more lucid than he appears to be. Ariadna Gil is sublime in her role. Both Fernando Tielve and Aida Folch are to be remembered, because I'm sure we'll see more of them in the future. Another thing I liked about this movie is the photography. Trueba makes good use of black and white and keeps shifting the screen format from one scene to the other. And I really liked the ending. See for yourself.

Seen at home, in Toronto, on March 4th, 2006.

82/100 (***)