Product Description

Spain released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: Spanish ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), English ( Subtitles ), French ( Subtitles ), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (1.85:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Collectors Edition, Deleted Scenes, Filmographies, Interactive Menu, Making Of, Photo Gallery, Production Notes, Scene Access, Short Film, Special Edition, Trailer(s), Uncut, SYNOPSIS: The debut feature from Spanish wunderkind Alejandro Amenбbar (Open Your Eyes, The Others), Tesis is a thriller starring Ana Torrent as Бngela Mбrquez, a film student who, while researching for a thesis paper on violence in cinema, stumbles upon a snuff film featuring the murder of a former student at the university. Enlisting the help of classmate and violent-movie buff Chema (Fele Martнnez), Angela begins an investigation into the crime that leads them to several suspects. One of them is Bosco (Eduardo Noriega), a handsome classmate to whom Angela finds herself attracted, much to the chagrin of Cheme. Tesis was the recipient of seven awards at the 1997 Goya Awards including Best Film.
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain, Fantasporto Awards, Goya Awards,

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #137364 in DVD
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Format: PAL
• Original language: Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 125 minutes

Amazon.com
Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar grabbed the attention of American audiences with his dreamy thriller Open Your Eyes, but he earlier sent shock waves throughout Spain in 1996 with this disturbing debut. Thesis is a quietly creepy psychological thriller about a young college student, Ángela (Ana Torrent) investigating the social fascination with sensational violence for her thesis project. In her search for violent video footage, she stumbles onto what may be a real live snuff film, a videotape that her professor was watching before his untimely death. With the help of a geeky gore junkie she uncovers a conspiracy that may include her handsome but sinister new boyfriend, her thesis advisor, and even her weirdo partner. When she uncovers one too many secrets lying in the catacombs of the university basement, she realizes that she may be the next victim. It goes on perhaps too long, and Amenábar's pointed observations on the lure of violence and the dark side of human nature are lost as the spiraling mystery spins into a first-person nightmare, but his skill at weaving a paranoid world where evil may lurk behind every friendly face is undeniable. Thesis is reminiscent of Brian De Palma's early thrillers: dark, stylish, subdued, and bubbling with the characters' guilty (and ultimately dangerous) fascination with the transgressive. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Thesis, a triumph of indie filmmaking, don't miss it!
Alejandro Amenábar's THESIS is one of the most disturbing and original movies I have seen in a long, long time. For some reason I was captured at once by its raw look and complex story, perfectly played by Ana Torrent as the lead character Angela.

Angela is a film student at the university in Madrid, Spain. While doing some research for her graduation thesis on violence in movies, she comes across (in part by chance) a snuff video tape where a young girl can be seen (and heard) slowly and viciously being tortured and killed to death, in the most gruesome and inhumane way you can possibly imagine.

The genious behind THESIS lies in the fact that Amenábar slowly takes you deeper and deeper into the story, until you find yourself immersed in a world of terror and intrigue from which you realize there is no way out.

Angela can't force herself to watch the tape at first, but the choices she makes will lead her deeper and deeper not only into the heart of the killer, but into the heart of her very own fears.

Don't miss this one, it's an excellent example of how you don't need a big budget nor A-list movie stars to make a truly outstanding movie. Word of caution though, this is not for the faint at heart. The DVD edition is highly, highly recommeneded, I'm glad they decided to release this one.

A real taste for death
The thing that's interesting is the word thesis. It can also mean a theme. Well, Alejandro Amenabar's theme and Angela's thesis are one and the same, examining people's morbidity over images of violent death. The theme can be summarized in the opening scene, involving a man who has thrown himself in front of the train and the people straining to see.

Angela Marques is a student at the School of Mass Communications in Madrid. She asks the kindly Professor Figueroa, who's directing her thesis, if he could get access to the video archives, which has some very violent images. He picks a video out and watches it in the screening room. The next day, Angela finds him dead from an asthma attack, but the look in his face is one of fear. She pockets the video he was watching and enlists the aid of Chema, a classmate who has a taste for violent and pornographic videos.

To her shock and surprise of Chema, it is a snuff film of a young girl being tortured, beaten, killed, and then cut to pieces with a chainsaw. Chema recognizes her as Vanessa, a student who had disappeared two years ago. However, is Chema telling her everything he knows?

Angela then runs into Bosco, a real lady's man who knew Vanessa. He charms his way into her family, even flirting with Sena, Angela's younger and bratty sister. Bosco is a bit of a cad, as he treats his girlfriend Yolanda callously. It turns out that Vanessa had run away with a boy and wrote a letter, but is that true? Things heat up when Jorge Castro, the cinema professor assigned to take over Figueroa's classes and hence directing her thesis, seems to be involved. There's more, but I won't spoil it here.

Castro effectively characterizes the business side of cinema, that it is an industry, and in order for it to succeed, it has to pander to what the public wants. His view contrasts the moral side represented by Angela, who while sickened by violent images, is fascinated by them only in an objective, scholarly way, and believes the director has responsibilities in what he/she presents.

Eduardo Noriega, who later starred as Cesar in Amenabar's smashing Abre Los Ojos, is perfectly cast as Bosco. He looks more like a retired member of Menudo, a real pretty boy. However, he is topped by Fele Martinez as Chema. With spectacles, long hair, mustache, goatee, and black clothing, Chema is a real contrast to Abre Los Ojos's Pelayo.

There is one in-joke. When Angela accesses the database of customers buying a certain video camera, a familiar name is seen. Hint, the initials are A.A.

This is a gripping thriller that builds up quicker than Abre Los Ojos and leaves the audience guessing. The gruesome scenes are kept to a minimum. Occasionally, the video switches to the POV of a B&W movie camera, reminding the viewer that we are the audience, the market for people targeted by Jorge Castro, and that the camera is a window to the soul, as someone once said.

And by the way, don't be thrown by the plot summary on the back of the video. It's written in Spanish but the movie's subtitled, so nothing to worry about.

Prepare to be Shocked
The things that make this movie really enjoyable are the unexpected twists and turns the plot takes. It is one of the most suspenseful movies I have seen in a long time, and the subtitles don't detract from that. So the movie itself is great (but if you are not yet desensitized to brutal acts of violence, you will probably be horrified). But there are some things the DVD version doesn't have that it should have. For example, you can't turn off the subtitles like you can with most DVDs. So even if you speak Spanish and don't need subtitles, you have to see the English words at the bottom. Also, there aren't very many extras that come with this DVD; at least as DVDs go. But the film is gripping and suspenseful, and if you're a collector of good foreign films, this would be a great one to have.