A Real Friend (2006)

Strong and Moving!

Really Surprised!

Better Late Then Never

A Major Disappointment

Truth be told I stumbled upon this flick by accident. I was bored flicking through my cable channels and thought the description was interesting. I could not have been more surprised at how well executed this movie was. A Real Friend is well written, acted out and directed.The choices made by the director to focus on the child and slowly bring into focus the monsters and the child's connection and then its strength: was brilliant. The mother's sex drive was odd, but the story in general was a pleasant surprise. Their are some heavy weight monster's on display towards the end, I was thrilled to see it all the elements come together, the mother's sex drive, the father, the monster relationship is was magnificently filmed and written.I would be remiss if I did not tell you in advance that this is only available with English subtitles, the primary language is Spanish. Works for me since I speak, write and talk it very well.Final Word If you do not mind subtitles, this is a spectacular movie, which is part of a bigger package: 6 Films to Keep You Awake.

After watching "The Real Friend", I may never view Leatherface quite the same. "The Real Friend" is one of those kinds of tales where the power of the imagination can be fostered, nourished, and given life through the desolation and loneliness of a little girl creating friends who are very real to her, mostly grotesque characters familiar to us through horror films(The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nosferatu) or classic novels(..Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde). Since this film is part of the Spanish television's "6 Films to Keep You Awake", the violence is at a tolerable level for a broader viewing public although the thematic material is quite adult. A bright, but rather lonely young girl, whose father isn't present in her life, spends time alone, as her mother works as a nurse for long hours. She watches horror films and certain characters are alive to her, such as Leatherface who even sits in classrooms with her. We follow a strange man searching for a psychotic killer who had escaped from a third-world prison in some poor village, and both find themselves in the city where the mother and daughter live. As these characters converge, we learn a startling truth and a young girl will need her friends' aid.The little girl is Estrella(Nerea Inchausti), and her mother is Angela(Goya Toledo). Estrella meets a bald biker who she thinks is Nosferatu. This man may not be who Estrella believes and he very well could harbor a secret that involves Angela. The fourth character, a bible-toting, always-praying detective, obsessively on the pursuit of an escaped killer, seems to be after the biker, eventually warning Angela of "his return" and that she could be in danger. The finale has the many imaginary characters Estrella has developed perhaps coming to her and Angela's rescue. The twist regarding what we have been watching all the time is a doozy. Seeing Leatherface turn up, with his chainsaw and tie, is simply bizarre, especially when he cuddles with a rather solemn Estrella. How the filmmakers were able to pull this off without infringing some copyright sure as heck surprised me. Director Enrique Urbizu carefully avoids grisly violence, using blood as a device to explain the fates of some at the hands of a killer. Eduardo Farelo is quite effective as a possible threat to our mother and daughter, and is especially memorable during an intense dinner scene where the horror of what he might say to Estrella is etched on Angela's face(Toledo is quite impressive here, showing a mother attempting to disguise fear and holding on by a slender thread as he shows signs of spilling the beans). Ambitious little film, with a lot to say about the influences of television/pop culture and the disappointments of reality when compared to fantasy.

Estrella (Nerea Inchausti) is a good student, but she is a loner. She reads horror novels, and watches horror movies, like the Spanish version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and keeps a statue of Nosferatu in her room. The chainsaw killer is a friend that only she can see, unlike her "vampire" friend that can walk around in the daylight.Her mother, Angela (Goya Toledo), is a nurse, which leaves the child alone much of the time while she works on rotating shifts. She also engages in kinky sex at the hospital and in the apartment garage. Her daughter catches her and is very upset. She brings the "vampire" home and mom has to face some hard realities.There is no real horror in the film. What we see is surreal - a figment of the girl's imagination. This is made clear in the final scene, and I am not sure what the whole point of the movie was. Unsupervised children may be reading and watching inappropriate material, but a parent has to work, so what are you to do? If that was the point, then it was lost on me.I certainly won't be staying awake because of this film. It was hard enough to stay awake through it.

Here is a film that defines the very aesthetic European cinema stands for. A Real Friend is bold, experimental, surreal, has something to say and yet retains enough conventional if not obligatory situations and scenes that get across a genuine feeling of paranoia and suspense. The film is Spanish and is part of a series of short horrors designed 'to keep you awake' but a phrase like that cheapens this experimental effort that will keep you awake, only for the reason that you may have a hard time working it all out rather than trying to get to sleep with the light on.The general feeling for contemporary Spanish cinema is that it has become too 'Americanised'. Most Spanish directors and leading Spanish actors and actresses have gone to Hollywood in the last decade or so and the influence to produce fast, post-modern, blackly comic films in Spain has been written about before. Although directors such as Almodóvar have an otherwise different say in the sense they do not submit to the temptation to appeal to a vast, overseas audience. But that is where A Real Friend steps into the fray; it sort of submits to the typical conventions that may appeal abroad. This is maybe due to its narrative revolving around a down and out ex-cop trying to find a criminal that gets a kick out of sexual assault – there are elements of noir in the plot, I think. Then there are the scenes towards the end when someone catches up with a certain character they have not seen in ages and a disturbing set of scenes arise – they feel like something out of a television serial, only done a little worse. We've seen this sort of story before.However, the film's run time and general approach (much like another film in the series 'To Let') is that of short and made for TV – it treats its material with the mindset of a 'sprint' rather than a 'marathon' so when these scene arrive nearer the end, you cannot help but feel a little under-whelmed even if the general situation is disturbing. But it is the earlier aspects and ideas the film carries that are the most interesting, not the 'Americanised' finale. The film begins with a young girl watching Tobe Hooper's 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' on a DVD while the mother is out at work (her father has long since left). Later, we see that she has some sort of unnatural obsession with fictitious antagonists with Nosferatu and Dr. Jekyll popping up at various points. It is here that I feel the film (or the director) is having a pop at the MPAA. It seems that these have no bearing on the primary narrative which is a cop trying to find a criminal but they do act as scenes that seem to try to make a point.Maybe it is writer's Jorge Arenillas and Enrique Urbizu making a point: they are pointing out how easy it is for underage children to get a hold of films they shouldn't see. Indeed, it may well be a question they are posing the people watching the film: 'Do you know what your kids are watching?' What backs up my idea is that the immediate ending of the film suggests a 'world within a world' ideation meaning that you still have an opportunity to stop what's just happened from happening. So if the film is saying 'films can fall into the wrong hands', what films are being shown as the ones to look out for? Well, the primary 'friend' the little girl makes is Leatherface himself which believe me, is very bizarre to see running around in a short Spanish made for TV film. Secondly, there is the model of Nosferatu who himself is a vampire from the famous German expressionism film of the 1920s. Finally the young girl is seen reading Dr. Jekyll, a British novel about scary goings on. The connection is that none of these monsters are Spanish; they are American, German and British respectively and I feel it is here the director and writer is making a statement about the influx of foreign ideas and, more importantly, 'content' that is infecting the Spanish culture and society. I mentioned there have already been essays on the Americanisation of the Spanish film industry but here, overseas inspiration is supposedly polluting the minds of the Spanish youth.So one influence is a film; the other is a book and the third one is a model in the girl's room. Apart from just an influence on television, the film challenges the parents: 'what are my children reading?' and 'what is that model actually of that stands in my child's bedroom?' Do you think the mother in the film knows who/what Nosferatu is? Clearly, she doesn't. But these ideas are sort of substituted for formula for the final third. The cop and the criminal have a stand off, there are some scenes later on suggesting an alternate mindset of another character and the general feeling of the avant-garde just seems to loose its effectiveness once all is said and done.A final thought on the clown. I thought that the clown was the representation of innocence; a sort of innocent mindset that dominates a young child's mind. The clown witnesses the nasty murder of a character and leans over, displaying deliberately cheesy sadness – it is the sort of reaction a child might have to an on screen death. They know it's not really real but they have a reaction where they don't know how to react. The clown's reaction is going on inside the child's mind when she watches Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and look what ends up happening to her.