VideoVista covers rental and retail titles in all genres and movie or TV categories, with filmmaker interviews, auteur profiles, top 10 lists,
plus regular prize draws.
HOME PAGE
INDEX OF ALL REVIEWS
SEARCH THIS SITE
COMPETITIONS
FORTHCOMING REVIEWS
TOP 10 LISTS
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
RETRO REVIEWS SECTION
ABOUT OUR CONTRIBUTORS
READERS' COMMENTS
SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER
SITE MAP
LINKS
SUPPORT THIS SITE -
SHOP USING THESE LINKS
visit other Pigasus Press sites...
The ZONE - genre nonfiction
Soundchecks - music reviews
Rotary Action - helicopter movies
|
September 2010
cast: Elena Anaya, Bea Segura, Hugo Arbues, and Jon Ari�o
director: Gabe Ib��ez
85 minutes (15) 2009
widescreen ratio 2.35:1
Optimum DVD Region 2 retail
RATING: 9/10
review by Ian Sales
|
Hierro
The fact that some films' plots can be neatly summarised in a couple of sentences can sometimes hide how good they are. A short pr�cis might
wrongly indicate that they are simple movies, with perhaps little to offer. Hierro is a case in point. Its story is easy to describe:
a single mother (Elena Anaya) visits the island of El Hierro, the smallest and most southerly of the Canary Islands, and her son vanishes on
the ferry trip there. Six months later, she is called back to the island to identify a recently-discovered body which matches his description.
It is not her son. But she must stay over the weekend until a judge arrives so they can make a DNA comparison. Convinced the local police are
covering something up; she decides to investigate on her own...
Hierro is Gabe Ib��ez's first full-length feature - he has previously directed only short films. And it's a remarkably assured debut.
It's a film with a clear aesthetic. The landscape of El Hierro is a dark, volcanic island of black beaches and black rocks, and its landscape
provides one of the two colour motifs. The other is sea-green, inspired by Mar�a, the mother, who is a marine biologist. These two colours cast
a grim and lugubrious mood, which fits the film's story. El Hierro feels like an alien place, Maria is a stranger in a strange land, and the
island's inhabitants are clearly not like her. They don't behave especially oddly, but there's a clear disconnect between them and Maria - for
all their offers of help, their seeming friendliness.
Although Mar�a believes her son to still be alive, it is not hope that drives the plot of Hierro. Maria suffers from dreams, nightmares
in which she is underwater, or the world around her is water-logged. It's a somewhat obvious metaphor - plainly she is 'drowning' in her
dealings with the El Hierro local administration - but it's forgivable because the film is so beautifully shot. Despite this, it's Mar�a's
actions which drive the plot, and unravel the mystery of her son's disappearance. Yet the film's resolution is neither astonishing, nor especially
obvious; but it does make perfect, logical sense. And in today's world of cinema, there are few films which can say as such.
Hierro is low-key and slowly paced, but the wonderful cinematography and excellent cast make for a gripping film. It is not, as the
DVD cover claims, a 'supernatural thriller'. The dream sequences might perhaps suggest as much; but there's nothing inexplicable in the mystery
or its resolution. Hierro is a 'psychological thriller', and a very good one.
Finally, the DVD is being sold as "from the producers of Pan's
Labyrinth and The Orphanage" - a tagline becoming
increasingly common on film posters. Why should viewers care about who produced a film? Producers have no artistic input. Knowing that a film
came in on-budget will not inspire people to watch it. The information is completely meaningless. Why not have 'film stock provided by the same
supplier who provided the film stock for Titanic'? Clearly it's not enough that producers make pot-loads of money from successful films,
they want some of the credit too. They want the audience to know that their business acumen - or lack of, because to be fair we've no idea how
well-managed the production was - was applied to another artistic endeavour. The contorted justifications businesses use to promote their products
seem to make less sense every day...
|
|
|
