Based on José Ortuño's
(Spanish language) novel of the same name, Ánimas is a flawed but highly intriguing Spanish art-horror film that seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it experience. Within the tapestry of the movie's often
neon green and red color scheme and lighting, and the retro, grungy, neo-noir
prop and stage design, a relatively slight but nevertheless intriguing narrative
involving a limited cast of six main faces unfolds, a dreamy tale undulant of
teenage angst, broken homes, abusive families, and unsaid and indistinct
horrors that has more in common with surreally unsettling films like Jacob's Ladder (1990 / trailer) or The Attic Expeditions (2001 / trailer) than the traditional run-of-the-mill, relatively conventional
horror films that tend fill the market today.
Spanish trailer to
Ánimas:
Ánimas opens by introducing us to Bram as a little
boy, seeking refuge on the stairwell of a rundown apartment building from his
abusive father, who has just broken the child's beloved yo-yo and is loudly releasing
the rest of his rage on his wife (and Bram's mother) behind the closed
apartment doors. It is here that Bram first meets the same-aged Alex, a
neighboring little girl who teaches him the trick she uses to calm herself down
in times of need — and thus the two form a friendship, one as tight as it is symbiotic,
that obviously spans the years unbroken: we next see them again as late teens,
on the cusp of adulthood, at school as Alex (Clare Durant of The Malevolent [2016 / trailer]) motivates Bram (Iván Pellicer) to muster his
courage to approach the Asian classmate Anchi (Chacha Huang), with whom he soon
forms a relationship.
Anchi, much like Bram's mother (Liz Lobato of The Birthday [2004 / trailer]) and his shrink, Karla Berger (Ángela Molina), expresses
an antipathy against his platonic best friend, one that long remains baseless
or incomprehensible to the viewer. Like Bram, Alex is seemingly nothing more
than yet another troubled teen, admittedly one with a penchant for
self-mutilation, but hardly a figure that could be viewed as automatically
inviting dislike. And while Bram may have an abusive father (Luis Bermejo) to
deal with, not to mention a distant and suicidal mother, Alex is faced by a
threatening shadow and a dangerously bending reality, not to mention thorough
desertion by her unseen mother, who literally moves out overnight taking
everything with her.
Unluckily, just when it seems that Alex is in need of similar
constructive support to that which she has give Bram over the years, he is in
less and less need of (and has less time for) his former best friend.
Truly terrifying, Ánimas is not; and many of the scares are somewhat
generic if not predictable. Even the final resolution is, to an extent, not all
that unexpected to the truly observant. But visually, the film is a slow burn
that is both fascinating and compelling, and it pushes at the boundaries of
what is normally considered acceptable within a "realistic" horror
film, be it the set design or the mood-inducing (and symbolic) lighting. And
even if the narrative is a bit muddled, in retrospect one cannot help but
realize that it is appropriate to the denouncement.
One might argue that Ánimas is, in the end, an
exercise of style over substance, but the argument of whether one is better
than the other is an argument that often raises its head within the arts, be it
films or painting or literature, but has yet to be answered unequivocally. (If
you like Van Gogh or Thomas Hart Benton, does that mean you aren't allowed to
like Jeff Koons or Ai Weiwei? If you enjoy movies Last Year at Marienbad [1961 / trailer], are you not permitted to
enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy [2014
/ trailer]? Like Brazilian fish taco,
no hairy cheese sausage?)
Any argument, whether pro
or con, must, however, give credit to the filmmakers for at least trying to
bend the rules of the very genre that they are obviously both well-informed
about and respect. What's more, as light as its plotline might be, Ánimas obviously does not view the viewer as
unintelligent. That alone is a rarity in film, as is the movie's wonderfully
immersive mise-en-scene.
Hardly nondescript, easy-to-accept cinematic fodder,
the movie will best appeal to those who like their movies different. Imagine a lazy,
no-budget Wes Anderson directing a Spanish-language horror thriller, and then
you get a slight idea of what to expect. We recommend Ánimas, but we don't expect
you to like it.
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