CANIBAL/CANNIBAL
Spain, 2013, 116 minutes, Colour.
Antonio de la Torre, Olimpia Melinte.
Directed by Manual well Martin Cuenco.
Perhaps the title is offputting. But there is much more to the film than indicated by its title.
The Spanish film has won many awards, especially for the actor, Antonio de la Torre. He plays the best tailor in the city of Granada, a reclusive man. However, at the opening of the film, we watch, with him, a car filling up with petrol, then his pursuit of the car, crashing it and taking the body of a dead woman, dissecting it and packing it up in meat parcels for his freezer. We also see him having his dinner, eating the meat from his freezer.
However, this is a portrait of a disturbed man, rather silent and withdrawn, going about his work meticulously, with comments from a seamstress who is a mother figure. Into his apartment block comes a Romanian woman to whom he is attracted, who offers him massage, but whom he kills and dissects. Then her sister arrives, searching for the missing sister, again attractive to the tailor who, this time, supports her, goes to the morgue to identify a body, discusses matters with her, listens to a story about someone pursuing her for money which she has sent home to her parents.
Comfortable and uncomfortable in her company, he invites her to a holiday house on the mountains where he attempts to kill her but cannot. He confesses everything to her, and as they drive back to the city, she grabs the wheel of the car and crashes it, dying.
Carlos is a Catholic and at one stage goes to Mass, the brief sequence showing the consecration and the raising of the host and the chalice with this implication of eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood.
1. The impact of the title? Offputting? Suggestions of a horror story – but the result being a human drama?
2. The city of Granada, the apartments, the more, the tailor shop? The mountain scenery? The musical score?
3. The initial focus on the car, filling up with petrol, Carlos watching, the pursuit, the crashing of the car, the taking of the body, his dissecting it, the meat packages in his freezer? Seeing him eating his dinner, alone? The dramatic and emotional impact of watching him eat?
4. Carlos as middle-aged, tailor, living alone, the comments from the seamstress? His meticulous work, clients, his being obliging?
5. Alexandra, her arrival, interactions with Carlos, is attraction, the massage, her swimming, the death, his dissection?
6. The arrival of her sister, her concern, going to the morgue, not her sister? The discussions with Carlos, her situation, finance, her parents, Bogdan and his pursuit? The discussions, Carlos watching her from the window? His taking down Alexandra’s flyer? His explanation? His consideration, going to the meal, inability to eat the pasta?
7. His love for Nina, invitation to the house, driving, walking in the mountains? The night, putting her on the table, his inability to kill her? His confession the next day, the fact that there had been many killings, the cannibalism? Her puzzle as to why he did not kill her?
8. The drive home, Nina taking the wheel, the crash, the death, his survival?
9. What future?
