Editor's Note: If you "don't want to sleep" or "can't sleep," read on.
There may be a literary film here, and there may be a horror film here. I don't know if you'll fall asleep or if you'll be scared even more out of bed.
Tonight, let's talk about a recently highly regarded suspense film. This article has spoilers and is suitable for after-viewing. If you have not seen this film but like suspense movies, you can directly pull to the end of the article to see the list.
After a long time of not seeing classical suspense films, it is rare to have a punctual point such as this Spanish work "Contratiempo/the invisible guest", the Douban score quickly soared to 8.6 points, and the imbd was also as high as 7.7 points. Rotten Tomatoes is calmer, with a general media freshness rating of 6.0 at the moment.
It is slightly better known by public names as "Divine Works", after all, this is a suspense film in which smart audiences can guess the truth in the middle of the road. However, truth is not the only selling point of suspense films. For this film, reconstructing the facts over and over again in the truth, lies, and hypotheses, and connecting two cases and two corpses into a whole, is the most enjoyable.
Watching more suspense films with split personalities, hallucinations, etc., a film in which all characters are normal and all characters approach the truth or escape the truth in their own way is very fresh and amiable.
The film is roughly divided into four levels.
Tier 1: Adrian (Mario Casas), the president of a high-tech company who has reached the pinnacle of his career, is temporarily unconscious after being attacked in a closed hotel room. When he wakes up, his old lover, commercial photographer Laura (Barbara Lanny), is killed.
Who entered the room in what way and how did they escape the room with locked doors and windows? Everyone thought Adrian was the killer. Before the trial, he meets virginia Goodman (Anna Wagner), a top defense lawyer, at the hotel. The other party never had a record of losing the case, and came to cover the whole process for him to ensure that there were no details in the defense.
Second floor: Adrian and Laura have an affair and drive back to Madrid, colliding with another car on a secluded mountain road. The opposing driver died on the spot. The two act separately to cover up the truth – Adrian is sinking the dead car into the bottom of the lake; Laura is waiting for rescue, and is rescued by Thomas Garrido (Jose Corona), an engineer at BMW's Spanish branch who passes by, and connects her with the car to a nearby home for repairs. The harsh reality is that the young deceased Daniel is the only son of the old engineer Garrido.
Third Floor: The first confrontation between Adrian and Virginia, a female lawyer, in a hotel room. Adrian insisted on his own words: from the destruction of the corpse to the use of financial means to slander the deceased for absconding due to corruption, it was all the idea of her lover Laura. "Snake Scorpion Woman," murmured Virginia, a female lawyer.
So who lured Adrian and Laura to the mountain hotel where the crime occurred, and who killed Laura in what way? Why did Adrian's hundred thousand euros for the "extortionist" be spilled on the ground and not taken away?
At this stage, the female lawyer constructs a truth along the lines of Adrian's statement: the parents of the deceased killed Laura. Laura deserved it because she was responsible for the destruction of corpses and the cover-up of their crimes.
But here's the problem. Can such a truth impress the jury? Do they have enough evidence to support it?
Layer Four: The strategy given by the female lawyer is to push everything onto the dead Laura. But they lacked key evidence: Laura's association with the deceased and his car.
If a connection could be found, Adrian wouldn't even have to be present in the accident; it was all done by Laura alone, he just lent the car to Laura and afterged her.
To complete this set of defenses, the female lawyer must know the location of the body in order to lay out the evidence of the planting.
So far, Adrian has let go of his distrust of strange lawyers and let go of himself because he is about to be saved.
The wind changed direction, and the female lawyer became the one who had the upper hand after getting the place of the body. She re-established a theory that Adrian was the one who ruled everything, and he was the one who killed Laura. The remorseful Laura wanted to give the deceased's parents a little compensation and proposed that the two turn themselves in, so he killed Laura and killed her.
Adrian admitted it. At this point in the story, the truth has come out.
Since it is not difficult to guess, why is it still an excellent suspense film?
The first is the details. The director is very rigorous, all the details are useful information, suitable for audiences who are very serious about watching the film and love puzzles. Therefore, some commentators believe that it is "too strong, too much craftsmanship", and because of the details of the laying out too early to let the audience know the truth.
Secondly, under the overall tight seam, there are still accidents/loopholes. The audience's biggest question focused on the key details of why the male protagonist "by the way" after revealing the location of the sinking body, "He was not dead when the body was buried, I drowned him alive".
Although the forensic doctor was able to find out that the victim had drowned after the body was found (but the murderer at this time had pointed the finger at the dead Laura), after trusting the female lawyer, he also believed that telling her all the truth would better win the case. But he can't say anything about it, because after all, it is the ultimate line that defines whether he is evil or not.
Why still say it?
The arrogance of the male protagonist makes him triumphantly tell the truth. This is the only loophole in two well-planned murders that have been repeatedly exonerated with money and power. This loophole comes from the natural weakness of human beings, giving this suspense film that is perfectly flawless at every step of the way a "human touch".
Competitive, arrogant, and self-concerned, many sins come from and are exposed.
The four lead actors are also good actors. Everyone has multiple faces in truth and lies. In particular, anna Wagner, the female lawyer, proves the charm of the drama with strength, the super aura fights with the male protagonist, and the sentence "You are not smarter than me" turns the situation convincing.
Speaking of which, Spain has always been a big country for suspense films. It does not win with horror and scariness, but is mostly a work of strict logic and solemnity, and the tone is somber and atmospheric.
I recommend you 16 high-scoring Spanish suspense films:
1. The Death Thesis (tesis, 1996)
2. "Open Your Eyes" (Abre los ojos, 1997)
3. "The Laberinto del Fauno" (2006)
4. The Sin of Time and Space (los cronocrímenes, 2007)
5. Death Video 1-4 ([rec], 2007-2014)
6. La habitación de fermat (2007)
7. Lonely Castle (el orfanato, 2007)
Cell 211 (celda 211, 2009)
El secreto de sus ojos (2009)
10 Buried Alive (buried, 2010)
11. "Julia's Eyes" (los ojos de julia, 2010)
12 La piel que habito (2011)
13 When You're Asleep (mientras duermes, 2011)
14 La Cara Oculta (2011)
15. The Mystery of the Female Corpse (el cuerpo, 2012)
16. The Everglades (la isla mínima, 2014)