Rueiro

Yesterday I read the novel, the 200 pages in one afternoon. It is intriguing, it has atmosphere, it entertains. It just feels like a classic Henry James ghost story from Victorian/Edwardian times.

Now I've just seen the trailer of the film here, and what a disappointment. It looks terrible. They tried to do a horror period piece by recurring to every cliché from a modern horror film. It sucks, really. Daniel Radcliffe looks totally miscast, I guess they meant to make him look like an adult Harry Potter. And why do they insist on using trendy camera shots -tilts, zooms, exaggerated tracking shots- to film a period story like it is a modern one instead? I had enough. Thank god for the movie trailers, because sometimes they save you precious time.

I learnt of this film because of the tragic death of his director, and all the dark reputation it got as a result of that. Also, the fact that was shot in Galicia and only about 100 kilometres from where I was born, and in the year I was born, were also reasons enough to interest me. I downloaded it from YouTube and watched it last night.

It starts with the main character being discharged from a psychiatric hospital and returning home. We soon learn that he plans revenge on his aunt and his cousins, who arranged it to have him put away in the first place. It is a promising idea, but as the film progresses things happen very slowly and we are getting nowhere. Eventually, when he has the women at his mercy he can not bring himself to hurt them, he breaks and sudenly the plot has a twist: from executioner he turns into victim. Or, Doesn't he? The ending is an absolute surprise, I shall not spoil it for you if you haven't seen the film, because I think it is the best moment of it. But then, something has not been resolved after all.

The good aspects of this film are the cinematography and the use of the locations. Galicia has a long tradition of being a land of the supernatural, due to the usually foggy and rainy climate and the rural landscapes of mysterious forests, isolated villages, ancient Celtic ruins, and stormy, wild seashores, that brew legends of witches, werewolves, ghosts and the lot. And the film uses this effectively, in the sequence where the main character plays a prank on the old man who comes to see his aunt for business.

It has its good moments, and we have to credit the director with being able to build a horror story that does not fall in the usual cliches of tons of lurid scenes, gore and a girl screaming every five minutes. It is a pity that Guerin could not edit the film himself the way he had envisioned it in his head, because it probably would have been very different.