Arrebato (Rapture, 1979)

Spanish Escalones Films Blu-Ray edition




Spanish cultmovie (in Spain) i had never heard about. Indie artmovie drama and experimental psychological thriller and something like a mix of
a student film from David Cronenberg, Gaspar Noé and David Lynch. Did i like it ? I don't know, but i do remember it for sure, interesting stuff.
Short description: A mentally ill young man is obsessed with his film camera and he films everything he sees, and a failed B movie director and
his drug junkie girlfriend is drawn into his paranoia that the camera wants to hurt you somehow, to do something diabolic.

If Cronenberg made body horrors Zulueta here made a Film Camera horror, could a film camera be dangerous and have a nasty scheme going ?
Could our overstrung protagonist be right that any film, a 8 mm film reel in this case, hides terror between the film frames and can change our
physical reality and make us disappear into some alternate dimension ? A Film Camera can be a scary thing.

This film had three actors that would become famous in Spain, Eusebio Poncela (born 1945), Cecilia Roth (born in Argentina 1956) and toothy
but cute Marta Fernández Muro Ortiz (born 1950) and all three known from i.a. Pedro Almodovar films. Will Moore only made this one film.
Director and designer Iván Zulueta or Juan Ricardo Miguel Zulueta Vergarajauregui was born and died in San Sebastian (1943-2009).

José Sirgado (played by Eusebio Poncela) is a director of B movie horror films and he's cutting his latest, a werewolf movie, when he receives
a parcel with a 8 mm film reel and an audio cassette. José finds his on and off girlfriend Ana (Cecilia Roth) staying in his apartment and they are
both junkies and shooting heroine. The parcel was sent from Pedro (Will Moore) a guy that José vaguely remembers, and a Flashback follows
where José went by car with his ex-girlfriend and Pedro's cousin Marta to visit Pedro in a house in the countryside outside of Madrid.
Marta has told José that Pedro shoots and projects secret films, films that only he can watch and that he screams out of fear when he's doing it.

José also brings Ana with him to meet Pedro and to watch one of his films. Pedro is very excited but the mystical secret film is just a bunch of
images of the sky, of greenery, flowers and of water. A strange guy and probably a crackpot.
Back to present, José is irritated that his werewolf movie sucks and that Ana has become addicted to smack, their relationship is chaotic.
He listens to Pedro's cassette tape and he watches the film reel Pedro sent him, with everything Pedro filmed since last time. Pedro now lives in
a Madrid apartment and José goes looking for him. What has happened and what is real ?

After watching too many spanish horror movies, gialli, WIP trash, slashers and an assortment of sleazy B movies for the last year i at first found
this film to be too arty for my taste .... but afterwards it has grown on me and think about it and the interesting ending.

The Spanish Bluray presents the film in 1.66:1 ratio with a spanish audio DTS-HD MA 2.0 with english subtitles.
Many hours of Extras - All in spanish without any english subtitles:
Española TV version, two short movies by Zulueta 1. Leo es pardo 2. Párpados and three Documentaries 1. Iván Z 2. Arrebatos 3. La Décadance

 

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