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| MISCELANNOUS |
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| Tesis (Thesis) By Yodasnoog |
| Snuff movies, a myth that many people confuse with mondo documentaries like the Faces Of Death series. But in Tesis, the Snuff phenomenon is all too real. Tesis is the debut feature from Alejandro Amenabar, whose cult classic Abres Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) was remade by Hollywood as Vanilla Sky. It tells the story of Angela (Anna Torrent) a student who is writing a Thesis on violence in the media, she asks her professor to try and get some footage for research from the library. While there he finds a room at the back of the library which contains many untitled videos, he takes one and gets out of there. Meanwhile Angela meets Chema (Fele Martínez), a fellow student who has a big collection of Mondo and Porn films, Angela talks him into showing her some. The scene in which Chema agrees to show her the tapes is extremely well directed, as from each person’s point of view we hear that music they are listening to through their headphones, pointing up the contrast in their personalities. |
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| Angela |
| Chema |
| Bosco |
| When she watches the videos, she is disgusted but can’t take her eyes of it, while Chema stuffs his face with food enjoying the “entertainment”, totally unaffected by the violence on screen; like executions, beatings and autopsy’s. The next day she finds the professor dead in the screening room, he has died from an asthma attack from watching the tape he took, which Angela then takes. She and Chema watch the video, it is footage of a girl being tortured and then shot and dismembered. Chema knows the girl; she used to be a student at their college. They take it upon themselves to find out the origin of the tape, and the identity on the murderer. Along the way they meet Bosco (Eduardo Noriega), whom Angela finds herself drawn too, but the viewer is always left wondering about him. And from then on its all twists and turns… Tesis, quite frankly blew me away when I first saw it, I’d heard of it many times before and always thought “that sounds like my type of movie”, I couldn’t have been more right. I would say its easily one of my favourite movies ever. Amenabar’s direction is superb, treating the violence in a way that will offend a lot of people but also impress more with the way it doesn’t use it in an exploitive manner. For example in the scene when Angela and Chema first watch the tape, we only see glimpses of the footage, and at one point Angela’s point of view as she slowly moves her hand away from her eyes. Brilliant. |
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| Angela’s character isn’t as straight forward as most “horror” heroines, she is confused at the way the violence makes her feel, she is curious about death. The first scene in the movie is of a train accident where a man has thrown himself under the tracks; Angela forces herself to take a look, but is pushed back at the last minute. Chema on the other hand seems to get off on watching violence he seems immune to it. He doesn’t think that there’s anything wrong with it, to him its entertainment; “The Good stuff” – As he calls it. There are many scenes in this movie that will have you tense, like the scene where Angela and Chema are in total darkness in the library, or the moment you realise who was behind the whole thing (which isn’t even at the climax of the movie). There is also my favourite part of the movie, where “someone” comes out of the darkness and lashes at the camera. I wont say who or when, but you’ll know it when you see it. Really creepy Track this film down and watch it by yourself in total darkness, and have a good old time. |