Here is a film that defines the very aesthetic European cinema stands for. A Real Friend is bold, experimental, surreal, has something to say and yet retains enough conventional if not obligatory situations and scenes that get across a genuine feeling of paranoia and suspense. The film is Spanish and is part of a series of short horrors designed 'to keep you awake' but a phrase like that cheapens this experimental effort that will keep you awake, only for the reason that you may have a hard time working it all out rather than trying to get to sleep with the light on.
The general feeling for contemporary Spanish cinema is that it has become too 'Americanised'. Most Spanish directors and leading Spanish actors and actresses have gone to Hollywood in the last decade or so and the influence to produce fast, post-modern, blackly comic films in Spain has been written about before. Although directors such as Almodóvar have an otherwise different say in the sense they do not submit to the temptation to appeal to a vast, overseas audience. But that is where A Real Friend steps into the fray; it sort of submits to the typical conventions that may appeal abroad. This is maybe due to its narrative revolving around a down and out ex-cop trying to find a criminal that gets a kick out of sexual assault there are elements of noir in the plot, I think. Then there are the scenes towards the end when someone catches up with a certain character they have not seen in ages and a disturbing set of scenes arise they feel like something out of a television serial, only done a little worse. We've seen this sort of story before.
However, the film's run time and general approach (much like another film in the series 'To Let') is that of short and made for TV it treats its material with the mindset of a 'sprint' rather than a 'marathon' so when these scene arrive nearer the end, you cannot help but feel a little under-whelmed even if the general situation is disturbing. But it is the earlier aspects and ideas the film carries that are the most interesting, not the 'Americanised' finale. The film begins with a young girl watching Tobe Hooper's 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' on a DVD while the mother is out at work (her father has long since left). Later, we see that she has some sort of unnatural obsession with fictitious antagonists with Nosferatu and Dr. Jekyll popping up at various points. It is here that I feel the film (or the director) is having a pop at the MPAA. It seems that these have no bearing on the primary narrative which is a cop trying to find a criminal but they do act as scenes that seem to try to make a point.
Maybe it is writer's Jorge Arenillas and Enrique Urbizu making a point: they are pointing out how easy it is for underage children to get a hold of films they shouldn't see. Indeed, it may well be a question they are posing the people watching the film: 'Do you know what your kids are watching?' What backs up my idea is that the immediate ending of the film suggests a 'world within a world' ideation meaning that you still have an opportunity to stop what's just happened from happening. So if the film is saying 'films can fall into the wrong hands', what films are being shown as the ones to look out for? Well, the primary 'friend' the little girl makes is Leatherface himself which believe me, is very bizarre to see running around in a short Spanish made for TV film. Secondly, there is the model of Nosferatu who himself is a vampire from the famous German expressionism film of the 1920s. Finally the young girl is seen reading Dr. Jekyll, a British novel about scary goings on. The connection is that none of these monsters are Spanish; they are American, German and British respectively and I feel it is here the director and writer is making a statement about the influx of foreign ideas and, more importantly, 'content' that is infecting the Spanish culture and society. I mentioned there have already been essays on the Americanisation of the Spanish film industry but here, overseas inspiration is supposedly polluting the minds of the Spanish youth.
So one influence is a film; the other is a book and the third one is a model in the girl's room. Apart from just an influence on television, the film challenges the parents: 'what are my children reading?' and 'what is that model actually of that stands in my child's bedroom?' Do you think the mother in the film knows who/what Nosferatu is? Clearly, she doesn't. But these ideas are sort of substituted for formula for the final third. The cop and the criminal have a stand off, there are some scenes later on suggesting an alternate mindset of another character and the general feeling of the avant-garde just seems to loose its effectiveness once all is said and done.
A final thought on the clown. I thought that the clown was the representation of innocence; a sort of innocent mindset that dominates a young child's mind. The clown witnesses the nasty murder of a character and leans over, displaying deliberately cheesy sadness it is the sort of reaction a child might have to an on screen death. They know it's not really real but they have a reaction where they don't know how to react. The clown's reaction is going on inside the child's mind when she watches Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and look what ends up happening to her.
The general feeling for contemporary Spanish cinema is that it has become too 'Americanised'. Most Spanish directors and leading Spanish actors and actresses have gone to Hollywood in the last decade or so and the influence to produce fast, post-modern, blackly comic films in Spain has been written about before. Although directors such as Almodóvar have an otherwise different say in the sense they do not submit to the temptation to appeal to a vast, overseas audience. But that is where A Real Friend steps into the fray; it sort of submits to the typical conventions that may appeal abroad. This is maybe due to its narrative revolving around a down and out ex-cop trying to find a criminal that gets a kick out of sexual assault there are elements of noir in the plot, I think. Then there are the scenes towards the end when someone catches up with a certain character they have not seen in ages and a disturbing set of scenes arise they feel like something out of a television serial, only done a little worse. We've seen this sort of story before.
However, the film's run time and general approach (much like another film in the series 'To Let') is that of short and made for TV it treats its material with the mindset of a 'sprint' rather than a 'marathon' so when these scene arrive nearer the end, you cannot help but feel a little under-whelmed even if the general situation is disturbing. But it is the earlier aspects and ideas the film carries that are the most interesting, not the 'Americanised' finale. The film begins with a young girl watching Tobe Hooper's 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' on a DVD while the mother is out at work (her father has long since left). Later, we see that she has some sort of unnatural obsession with fictitious antagonists with Nosferatu and Dr. Jekyll popping up at various points. It is here that I feel the film (or the director) is having a pop at the MPAA. It seems that these have no bearing on the primary narrative which is a cop trying to find a criminal but they do act as scenes that seem to try to make a point.
Maybe it is writer's Jorge Arenillas and Enrique Urbizu making a point: they are pointing out how easy it is for underage children to get a hold of films they shouldn't see. Indeed, it may well be a question they are posing the people watching the film: 'Do you know what your kids are watching?' What backs up my idea is that the immediate ending of the film suggests a 'world within a world' ideation meaning that you still have an opportunity to stop what's just happened from happening. So if the film is saying 'films can fall into the wrong hands', what films are being shown as the ones to look out for? Well, the primary 'friend' the little girl makes is Leatherface himself which believe me, is very bizarre to see running around in a short Spanish made for TV film. Secondly, there is the model of Nosferatu who himself is a vampire from the famous German expressionism film of the 1920s. Finally the young girl is seen reading Dr. Jekyll, a British novel about scary goings on. The connection is that none of these monsters are Spanish; they are American, German and British respectively and I feel it is here the director and writer is making a statement about the influx of foreign ideas and, more importantly, 'content' that is infecting the Spanish culture and society. I mentioned there have already been essays on the Americanisation of the Spanish film industry but here, overseas inspiration is supposedly polluting the minds of the Spanish youth.
So one influence is a film; the other is a book and the third one is a model in the girl's room. Apart from just an influence on television, the film challenges the parents: 'what are my children reading?' and 'what is that model actually of that stands in my child's bedroom?' Do you think the mother in the film knows who/what Nosferatu is? Clearly, she doesn't. But these ideas are sort of substituted for formula for the final third. The cop and the criminal have a stand off, there are some scenes later on suggesting an alternate mindset of another character and the general feeling of the avant-garde just seems to loose its effectiveness once all is said and done.
A final thought on the clown. I thought that the clown was the representation of innocence; a sort of innocent mindset that dominates a young child's mind. The clown witnesses the nasty murder of a character and leans over, displaying deliberately cheesy sadness it is the sort of reaction a child might have to an on screen death. They know it's not really real but they have a reaction where they don't know how to react. The clown's reaction is going on inside the child's mind when she watches Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and look what ends up happening to her.