AVISO, L' /THE WARNING

Spain, 2018, 93 minutes, Colour.
Raul Arevalo, Aura Garrido, Hugo Abues, Belen Cuesta, Antonio Dechent..
Directed by Daniel Calpasoro.

An interesting Spanish thriller and the audience has to keep attentive as to what is going on, especially the continuity between different time periods.

The film opens with a shooting in a 24 hour service station. Jon, ,Raul Arevalo, is distraught when his best friend, David, is shot. However, he goes into coma, and goes through surgery.

In the meantime, the action goes forward 10 years to 2018, the focus on a 10-year-old boy and his mother, their lives at home, his being bullied at school, his visits to the 24 hour service station, forced to steal a porn magazine for the bullies, but discovered by the friendly manager. The boy receives a note warning him to avoid the 24 hours service station on his birthday or he will be killed.

Throughout the action, the film moves from 2008 to 2018, backwards and forwards – with a flashback to deaths in 1976, 1955, 1913, all of the same site. Jon who is a mathematical genius starts to investigate each episode, discovering the same number of people there, people are the same age as – and he works out that a 10-year-old boy will be killed in 2018. He has delivered a note with the manager to warn the boy – and the manager has sent it to Nico. However, Nico’s mother is sceptical.

Jon interviews various people to get information about the 1913 massacre, the son of the victim in 1955, a witness to the terrorist action in 1976. Ultimately, when David is getting better, Jon realises that he was the intended victim and, by the mirror outside the service station, he is able to communicate with Nico, urging him to run, and Jon himself dying to save Nico.

The film moves at quite a pace, contrasting Nico and his mother and their ordinary life with Jon and his frantic investigations as well as the tension in the hospital during the operation and the decision then to turn off David's life support.

1. The title? The note for Nico? The date, the place, the warning about his death?

2. Madrid, the city, the vistas, the buildings, the streets, apartments, service stations, the school? Hospitals? Maternity ward? The musical score?

3. The plausibility of the plot? The touch of the supernatural? The one location, bank, service station? The deaths, 1913 massacre, family betrayal situation in 1955, 1976 and the terrorism, 2008 and the drive-by shooting, 2018 and the robbery?

4. Jon, mathematical genius, the formulae on the blackboard, his interest in the mathematics of the statistics, five people present, their respective ages, the similarities, the 10-year-old boy? Each murdered person incarnate on the day of the killings? The continuity?

5. Jon, driving, Andrea and the ice, picking up David, the discussions, trip to Paris, the engagement, Jon and his past relationship with Andrea? At the 24 hours, the shooting, Jon going in, David dead, the proprietor, calling the ambulance and police?

6. The continuity of the 2008 sequences, the hospital, the doctors, David and his condition, deteriorating, the artery and the brain, the possibility of surgery, his going downhill, the issue of turning off life support, Andrea and her refusal, the brother, the parents? Andrea's ringing Jon?

7. Jon, his research, interviewing people, the survivors, the old lady with the information about the massacre, the son of the murdered woman in 1955, the garage witness about 1976?

8. Nico and his mother, ordinary themes, the ex-husband, Nico bullied at school, to buy the porn magazine, the tough boys, his attempt to steal, the proprietor of the 24-hour, the mother concerned? His mother seeing Nico in the yard? Her complaints to the principal, the discussions, her anger? Nico and the boys, photographing him in the toilet and the threat? Sara, her friendship, life at home, life at school?

9. The note and warning, the proprietor at the shop, the mother confronting him, and not believing the note? Nico and his fear, the other boy not going, the mother going to confront the parent, no truth? Nico not wanting to go to the 24-hour, his mother's insistence, his birthday, the cake, his hiding in the back of Sara's car, going to the principal, Sarah's mother and her apology?

10. Eventually going to the store, to get the magazine, the others in the store, the manager? The thug with his gun, preparing for the robbery?

11. Jon and his theory, going to the maternity ward for any child born on the day? The film showing Nico's birth, his mother late, Nico being the inheritor?

12. Andre's continued desperation, the turning off of the life support, her phone calls to Jon, her frantic visit to him?

13. The effect of intercutting 2008 and 2018? Jon, becoming more desperate, his pills, schizophrenia, talking with the medical authorities? His frustration? The realisation of the incident on 2 April and David to die on 12 April? The common date?

14. His realisation that he was meant to be the victim rather than David? His trying to warn Nico? The mirror outside the 24-hour? Nico appearing to Jon, Jon appearing to Nico? Jon urging him to run?

15. The robber, the shooting, the associate on the bike? Jon, his death, Nico saved, going back to his mother? David revising?

16. Irrespective of the plausibility of the plot, the enjoyment of the characters, the situation, the tension?