VICENTE ARANDA

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BBBB.  

Original title:  Celos

Spain, 1999.  Screenplay by Vicente Aranda, Alvardo del Amo.  Cinematography by Jose Luis Alcaine.  Produced by Fernando Bovaira.  Music by José Nieto.  Production Design by Josep Rosell.  Costume Design by Alberto Luna.  Film Editing by Teresa Font.  

Aitana Sánchez-Gijón plays an orange packer about to be married to her truck-driver boyfriend when he finds a picture of her on the beach with a handsome young man whom he’s never met before. He questions her, pesters her really, and she insists it’s a relationship in the past that she has long since forgotten. The journey he takes leads him to places of the heart and the male egotistical mind that I’m sure he’d rather not have gone to. The ending’s a bit too Schwarzenegger for my liking, but other than that it’s a fascinating study of obsession that would have made Hitchcock very proud.

Toronto International Film Festival:  1999