Amenabar

I first heard about Amenabar, a couple of years back, I am not sure where. The first distinct memory I have is a documentary of filmmaking on Cinemax. India was featured, and so were some other countries, but also, of course was Spain. They were talking about the revival of Spanish cinema, and Alejandro Amenabar and his buddy Mateo Gil were featured. It looked very interesting. I have a fond of memory of Spanish movies, because once when I was in Spain, I actually watched a movie in all Spanish called The Day of The Beast (not by Amenabar), which I should get a copy of for Brash. I didn't understand the words but I enjoyed it.



And so these Amenabar movies looked good!

Anyway, moving on to Tesis.

When watching a movie, it is sometimes unfortunate for the director, that the viewer had seen movies similar to the one the director had just made. For me it was the Ring. And so during the whole movie, I was comparing Tesis to The Ring. Will the video in Tesis be as scary as the video in The Ring? Will the bad guys here be as scary as the bad guys in The Ring. And my answer to this is "no". Just when Amenabar was at the brink of scaring the beejezus out of you. He failed. But maybe this was his first movie and I'm being too harsh. But his subsequent movies didn't scare me either. And I am easily scared.

Anyway, back to the movie.

The movie script itself was weak. The twists and turns weren't believable if not downright annoying. The script was too long. But of course, this is the fault of the scriptwriter.

One character though that was very endearing was the character Chema, played by Fele Martinez. A video violence addicted film student, he reminded me of a lot of people I know. Imagine Gary Oldman as teenager. hehehe.

Okay, now here comes the part where I sell-out.

Did I like the movie?

Yes!

I liked the fact it was a Spanish movie. The language is very nice to hear. The story while long and unbelievable was very watchable. Amenabar has certain directorial and scripwriting traits that have great potential. What bothers me is, after watching Tesis, and The Others (which I didn't like) and Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe's version). I just realized that Amenabar can't write. He could, he has some sparks of genius in his film, but after three movies and to see he hasn't improved much, and that's just disheartening.

I am happy that Spanish cinema is going through a revolution. But if this is the greatest this Great Spanish Hope can do, it is not enough. It is not enough to shake the foundations of the world. The Spanish should try harder. And not rest on the laurels of the past.