Off Script: The Others

Film: The Others
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen The Others. I remembered this as a film that I genuinely liked, but that I wasn’t sure would work on a rewatch. Films that work with a twist ending often have the problem of not wearing well on a repeat viewing. So I had some concerns. It’s exactly what happened to me with A Beautiful Mind, a film I enjoyed on the first viewing and found lackluster on the second. I didn’t really want that to happen with The Others, but I am ever a slave to the list. Fortunately, this is a film that is made well enough that even knowing the ending doesn’t for a second spoil how well the whole thing holds together.

What The Others gets right is the atmosphere. This is a film that foregoes gore and blood. Instead, it’s all about creating a world of suspense. This is about the creeps. The point here is to establish a sense of dread, to give us not something that horrifies, but rather puts us in touch with a space between the real world and the spirit world. In that respect, it is reminiscent of films like The Haunting that depend entirely on atmosphere, shadow, and sound for the creation of scares and tension.

Whom Do You Trust?

Film: Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)
Format: DVD from Reddick Library through interlibrary loan on kick-ass portable DVD player.

It’s really difficult for a film to surprise me these days. I’ve seen so many films in the last three years that I feel like I’ve seen all of the tricks. So when one really surprises me, I’m prone to like it. Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) surprised me. It went somewhere I didn’t think it was going, and I enjoyed that aspect of the film quite a bit. However, it makes the summary of the film quite difficult, because this is not a film to have spoiled. In fact, this is true to the point that I’m not going to put anything under a spoiler tag. I’ll do my best.

Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) is wealthy, thanks to inherited money, and attractive, making him quite the hit with the ladies. On the night of his birthday, he meets Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the current girlfriend of his best friend Pelayo (Fele Martinez). Cesar is also being pursued by an unstable one-night stand named Nuria (Najwa Nimri). He and Sofia hit it off, but there’s some fear of his being disloyal to his friend, a fear that he quickly overcomes. He spends a night with Sofia, although they do not sleep together. The next morning, he goes outside and sees Nuria, who offers him a ride. Shortly thereafter, Nuria purposefully crashes her car, killing herself and disfiguring Cesar terribly.