Tesis DVD

Alejandro Amenabar's first film Tesis has impressive restrain for a debut, as you might expect from the man who went on to make Open Your Eyes and The Others. It's also the most intelligent consideration of the urban myth of snuff films seen onscreen in recent years. Ana Torrent is a priggish young student writing a thesis on violence in movies and finds out more than she wants to know. From the opening shots of her fascinated attempt to see a suicide victim mashed on the Madrid metro to her ambivalent involvement with Chemo (Fele Martinez)--a sinister nerd, obsessed... with collecting dubious videos--and her flirtation with one of their principal suspects, Torrent portrays a traditionally plucky heroine along with her darker, more complicit and self-destructive side. As in his later work, Amenabar achieves maximum terror with minimum effect--dark rooms, gazes averted from torture we never see--because of his rich sense of the complexity of human character. What terrifies us here is the sense of our own demons. On the DVD: the DVD, which is presented in a 1.85:1 letterboxed video ratio and has Dolby Digital sound, comes with optional English subtitles, an intelligent, if slightly earnest documentary about the making of the film, a filmography, the theatrical trailer and a review article by the excellent Roger Clark. --Roz Kaveney [show more]

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