El Orfanato by Juan Antonio Bayona

It is 2am. Drowsiness is slowly sinking in, and might cloud certain judgments on this very breathtakingly, beautifully shot film.

But anyways.
This still from El Orfanato somehow manages to capture the essence of the film - a sordid tale of love and lost woven in intricate, extremely well crafted cinematography. Lush and sweeping, such artistic imagery - I found myself gasping in awe, and anticipating in agony almost. Such amazing visual pleasure it was, that most of the times, it outshone the very basic building block of narrative filmmaking, and that which is, the storytelling.

Laura (played convincingly by Spanish actress Belén Rueda) is a mother of an adopted HIV-positive child Simon. Together with her doctor husband Carlos, they move into an old mansion by the sea, which she as a orphan child herself grew up in. The house has been painstakingly remodeled as a home to less fortunate children, whom Laura plans to take care of. But as the big welcoming day looms, her son Simon starts acting strange.

Of course she thinks that he's just playing games and making all the childish stories up to mask his insecurity about having other children coming into the house to live with him. But when he goes missing on the big opening day, Laura becomes convinced that the house bears a sinister secret, which she must discover in time to save her only child.

I do admit, it is a good premise, and there is no build-up to cheap shocks or thrills that are used so abundantly in most films in this genre. When there is a scare it hits the nail right on the head, and I literally jumped in my seat (which I seldom or never do, ever!) However, once 'SIX MONTHS LATER' appears on screen, the strong emotional and psychological experience it wants to create start wearing thin.

Which is, in all honesty is not a good thing. I remember in writing class, Michael Burke stressed so strongly about being able to hook your audience with every scene - meaning every scene should make your viewers anticipate for the next one, and get involved emotionally so that they care enough to want to watch your film to the end. El Orfanato has a good start before the timeline is screwed, but hmmm... maybe I'm just not a big fan of timeline jumps (they annoy the hell out of me) However, the story picks up pace (in between CRAZY BEAUTIFUL, UNNECESSARY SCENES like the 300-esque underwater shots with Laura swimming, random Super8 sequences of the children who lived in the house, infrared footages of the medium trying to get in touch with the other worldly occupants - TOTALLY mish mashing the film's camera aesthetics and stylistic consistency) finally hits its high note with a shocking reveal to the discovery of Simon in the end.

(and this was despite its eerie resemblance to last final scenes of Nakata Hideo's The Ring-every horror film since seems to be an homage to this rare Japanese gem in YEARS. Hmm.)

That made the $11.50 ticket price worth every penny (that's RM40, now doesn't the thought of that just hurt). But of course that particular "hmmm, maybe this film isn't so bad afterall" feeling had to be marred by two additional scenes which gave the entire film an 'up' ending ('up' simply means positive, meaning you leave the cinema hall never to think about the story you just paid a whopping RM40 for, a 'down' ending is the exact opposite - you get mad because the ending was not what you expected hence you leave the cinema hall feeling aggravated, and an 'ambiguous' ending is an open ended closure to film sort of? leading to hour long discussions and debates over teh-tariks or flamboyant NY flavoured teas, whichever tickles your fancy)

I'm still annoyed.
Next on my list - the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, the first American film I'm going to watch in the cinema after Lust, Caution (Chinese), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Persepolis (both in French respectively) and El Orfanato (Spanish).

I wonder how hard it is to make it here, being a minority and foreigner. But Ang Lee cracked it and he is a Tisch graduate alum, so there must be hope.
Or isn't there?