Extraños (1999) Online

Throughout this film, the question is raised: "Do we really know who our closest beings- spouses, friends, business partners, our parents, even ourselves really are?" This may be a very pretentious, way too abstract rhetorical question to address in one film alone. Nonetheless, that is what STRANGERS intends to do. It does so by continuously revealing secrets about its cast of characters. The focus is particularly on the person of a lone private investigator obsessed with a recurring dream. This P.I. is hired by a suspicious husband after his wife's behavior changes radically after her mother's alleged suicide. The investigation takes on the character of a cat and mouse game between the wife and the investigator, though involving most characters who are busy playing similar games amongst themselves. Through the course of this investigation/game, the private investigator tries to figure out his recurring nightmare by involving those involved in his investigation. All this intrigue serves to reinforce the original premise about all people being strangers. If you watch the film, please tell me what else we learn from sitting through this philosophical drama from Spain. I didn't learn anything new about the human race's unpredictable nature. The film is entertaining, well acted and pretty to look at it. But, where's the beef?

There might have been good intentions from the creators of this film to bring Juan Jose Millas novel to the screen. Director Imanol Uribe and Lourdes Iglesias, adapters of the original material, went for weirdness in telling the story of the involvement of a private eye and the woman he is asked to follow by her husband. The film falls apart, and at times, makes no sense whatsoever.

Sofia Miro, a cellist, was estranged from her mother. The announcement of her death leaves her cold, as there was nothing between mother and daughter. Eduardo, her husband, noticing Sofia's strange behavior, decides to engage a private eye to give him a full account on his wife's movements. It becomes clear as a couple they have failed miserably. The detective becomes obsessed with the beautiful Sofia when he finds a way to be with her.

The subplot involving Sofia mother's neighbor, Gloria, her mother Alicia, and Kurt, doesn't add much to a story that feels false from beginning to end. Usually we like Carmelo Gomez in much of his work, in this film though, he is bogged down with a character that shows no redeeming qualities. Beautiful Maria Casal has some good moments. Ingrid Rubio, Sergi Mateu and Bruno Bichir have nothing to do.

"Estranos" is a dark film, made even more so by Gonzalo Berridi's cinematography.

Unclassifiable `cine negro' thriller mixing fantastic and reality in which life and death interplay with fate, the destiny which awaits, lurking malevolently behind each person who is not what he or she might appear to be.

Little by little, in the making of this film, they had to deviate from the original novel by Juan José Millas, such that in its final form it has little resemblance to the book. Somewhat hazardously the film progresses as the private eye (Carmelo Gómez) becomes obsessed and paranoid, constantly invaded by his recurring dream of his own death, such that in the end, logically, he goes out of his mind. But all this is a vehicle or an axis around the central character, and is where the film maintains Millas' story-line, in that it is a kind of interior monologue of Sofía (María Casal), a cultured and sophisticated cellist, who becomes somewhat alienated from herself and others around her after the death of her mother (Asunción Balaguer).

The film becomes an abstract surrealism bordering on the phantasmagorical in dreaming sequences, such that the interrelating thread between the different persons in the film becomes almost secondary, as does indeed the story-line such as it is.

Exellent José Nieto: his score is the exact echo or shadow of the scenes, as well as the pieces played by the musicians in their rehearsals. Nieto has long been one of the two best composers for Spanish films and TV programmes of all kinds. The other is Antón García Abril.

Bold, somewhat imaginitive film-making, a high-risk shot at cuasi-avant garde cinema, this is not one of your classic detectivesque run-of-the-mill films, and as such will only appeal to minority audiences. It does have its fascination as the complex intertwined scenes develop, but it might be necessary to see this film two or three times to be able to grasp exactly where it is going. I should say, just about unique in Spanish film-making. Imanol Uribe is evidently a director with some very original concepts to offer. Very curious……….