Thesis

In Spain, Ángela Márquez (Ana Torrent) is a student of cinema preparing her thesis about the violence in the media. She approaches to the strange student of an another class, Chema (Fele Martínez), who is fan and has a collection of violent movies, to improve her research about this theme. She is receiving orientation of Prof. Figueroa (Miguel Picazo), who finds a `snuff' movie in the library of the university, showing the death of another student, Vanessa, violently killed by a man. While watching this film, Prof. Figueroa dies, and the new professor assigned to give orientation to Ángela, Jorge Castro (Xabier Elorriaga), questions many points in her thesis, inclusive the achievement of information. Meanwhile, Ángela is introduced to Bosco Herranz (Eduardo Noriega), a handsome and nice student of the university, and she suspects he made the violent movie and killed Vanessa. The plot is only resolved in the end of the film. The first film directed by Alejandro Almenábar that I watched was `Abre Los Ojos'. This masterpiece is very unknown here in Brazil. `Abre Los Ojos' is only available on VHS, and it certainly is in my list of the best thirty favorite movies. The common viewers only know the sophisticated and spoiled Hollywood version `Vanilla Sky'. The pretentious, wealthy and ham actor Tom Cruise impaired one of the most original screenplays ever made. Then I watched the marvelous `The Others'. Last month, his first movie, `Thesis', was released on DVD in Brazil. Yesterday I saw this magnificent low budget thriller. A very simple and realistic story, which keeps the viewer in tension until the last scene. There is no clichés, the performance of the cast is very credible, and it is impossible not to like this film. I did not know the meaning of `snuff' films. Based on these three foregoing mentioned movies, I dare to say that Alejandro Almenábar is the best new director of thrillers arose in the 90s. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): `Thesis - Morte Ao Vivo' (`Thesis - Death Live')

A promising director: it's what I thought after the screening of Amenabar's first feature. There is a compelling story told with bright creative ideas.

Eventually I felt the first part of the movie was really great and the following went a little under. Sure, it is more difficult to bring all sorts of things together after you built up an exciting suspense. Still you don't feel bored once you are getting to know what it is really all about, but you got more free 'RAM space' to think it over. Perhaps accelerating the rhythm would have kept Tesis on the same high level of suspense. Perhaps it would have been a mistake to change the pace.

Among things you can take away with you is the background theme about our attraction for the morbid. It opens and closes the movie and really gives it one further dimension - one could say it's a bit didactical but it's a least flaw for a first major effort.

Next step Senor Amenabar: a little less personal work (as compared with the experimental Abre los ojos) but still something personal (The Others is the least interesting work so far).

Tesis is one of the finest Spanish films of the last 10 years. God help us if Tom Cruise remakes this first Amenabar gem as he has Abre los ojos> Vanilla Sky coming soon, blech! Using the iconic gaze of Ana Torrent--see her at 6 in Spirit of the Beehive or at 10 in Cria!-- Amenabar makes an obvious but still gripping statement about modern society's facination with violence in the media. Using phenomenal tracking shots, cross-referenced pov and suspenseful tension to maximum effect, he and his cast convert what could have been a hack DePalma style Hitchcock ripoff into art. An awareness of contemporary Spain certainly helps, as much that we Americans consider passe was fairly new over there at the time (not in 2001, alas.) Fele Martinez at his best, too.

This film is an efficient thriller from Spain. It deals with the popular urban legend of "snuff" films (films which depict a real-life murder committed purely for the sake of the film).

The plot involves a young film student Angela (Ana Terrant) who is doing a thesis on cinematic violence. To research her thesis she seeks out the most extreme violence films she can find and accidentally stumbles upon a snuff film depicting the torture and murder of a fellow student from her university. She soon starts investigating the film.

The film is well-made and well-acted with several effective scares and twists. It's main message is that the people who watch violent films are in some way accomplices to the violent acts that they watch. This is an old point that has been made several times before. It also deals with the attraction of the forbidden. For example, in the opening scene, Angela goes to see a dead body on a railway track, partly because she has been told not to. Just when she, and the audience, are about to see the body she is stopped. In another scene, Angela is looking away from the snuff film but takes a quick look when she is told not to.

Why is death and violence so fascinating? Is it morally correct to show violence in movies? If so, is there a limit to what we should show? That is the subject of Ángela's examination paper.

As a film made by a film student about film students, much of "Tesis" is metafilmic and comments on the Spanish film industry, Hollywood influence and the voyeuristic nature of the horror and snuff genres. Following the aesthetic of the American horror genre, Angela operates as the "Final Girl," or resourceful female protagonist that defies stereotypical feminine traits.

This is every bit as gritty as a Hollywood horror film or thriller, and it is something of a surprise that it seems to be largely unknown. Even though it is foreign, die-hard horror fans should have latched on to it. And these days, it is a bit of a shock no one tried to remake it.