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Directed by: Eloy de la Iglesia

Stars: Carmen Sevilla, Vicente Parra, María Asquerino

Language: Spanish | Subtitles: English

Country: Spain

Also known as: Nadie oyó gritar

Description: A high-class call girl witnesses her neighbor disposing of his wife’s body. The man kidnaps her and forces her to help him. An unexpected relationship develops.

Despite having read a lot of praise for the title over the years,I’ve found myself constantly having to push Eloy de la Iglesia’a The Cannibal Man to the back of my ‘must buy’ list.With a poll coming up soon on IMDb’s Classic Film board for the best titles of 1973,I was delighted to discover,that I had unknowingly recently picked up a 1973 film directed by Iglesia,which led to me excitingly getting ready to hear the scream become unleashed.

The plot: With there only being a few days to go before she is to take her monthly plane trip to London,so as to spend a weekend with her ‘sugar daddy’,Elisa finds herself suddenly not wanting to make the ‘traditional’ trip to London,which leads to Elisa phoning up her piece of ‘sugar’ and telling him that its all over.

Being keen to get away from any familiar faces,Elisa decides to leave her holiday villa behind,and to instead move into a low-rent flat,whose tower block only contains a janitor and a loving husband and wife called Miguel and Nuria.After having exchanged pleasantries with Miguel and Nuria,Elisa lays down in bed,and gets set for a quiet weekend.Beginning to fall asleep,Elisa suddenly hears a strange noise which sounds like an object being dragged across the floor just outside her door.Opening the door,Elisa is met with the rather surprising sight of Miguel dropping a dead body down the tower block’s lift shaft.

Rushing back to her flat and slamming the door shut,Elisa is given the good news by Miguel,that due to it being the weekend,that they are the only 2 residence in the building.Telling him to go away,Miguel decides to reveal to Elisa that he has a gun,and that he will use it unless she lets him in.Carefully opening the door,Elisa is confronted by Miguel holding the gun and telling her to calm down. Realizing that he has all the power in his hand,Miguel tells Elisa that she will be safe,as long as Elisa becomes an accomplice and helps him to properly remove the body.Realizing that she has nowhere else to go,Elisa agrees to Miguel’s blood-soaked hands liaison.

View on the film: Smartly using the near empty block of flats as a method to physically display the closed off, isolated relationship that Elisa and Miguel place themselves in,the screenplay by co-writer/ (along with Antonio Fos and Gabriel Moreno Burgos)director Eloy de La Iglesia keeps the number of supporting character’s to a bare minimum so that the tense relationship between Elisa and Miguel becomes tightly coiled,as Elisa finds herself increasingly becoming an accomplice to the body removal,whilst Miguel finds Elisa’s determination to keep her head up high in front of him,to be something that oddly begins to charm Miguel.

Giving the title a Giallo-slated shot of Film Noir,the writer’s precisely inject supporting characters at crossing points in Elisa and Miguel’s relationship,where the murky shadows of their morals get a firmer grip every time one of them leaves the opportunity to separate from the ruthless plans of the other.Making the misconceptions of Elisa’s and Miguel’s personalities a central themes,the writers deliver a delicately handled,breath taking ending which gradually wraps its venom around Elisa and Miguel,and also cleverly changers the viewer’s perceptions on Elisa and Miguel’s motives.

Teaming up after both of them had worked with La Iglesia on separate occasions,Carmen Sevilla and Vicente Parra each give excellent performances,with Parra showing Miguel’s devilishly charming smile to be a cover for his harsh,decisive personality,as Parra shows how far Miguel is willing to go in order to get rid of the body.Joining Parra,the very pretty Carmen Sevilla gives a stunning performance as Elisa,thanks to Sevilla keeping Elisa away from being a two dimensional goody by revealing Elisa to be a Femme Fatale who has a lust for money,whilst also showing,that despite being sickened by his actions,Elisa finds something thrilling in Miguel’s body burying games.

Made at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Spain,director Eloy de La Iglesia bravely gives the movie strong homo-erotic undertones,by having the camera speed by during Elisa’s display of flesh,whilst allowing the camera to stay noticeably paused for moments when the male character’s show their skin.Closely working with cinematography Francisco Fraile,auteur La Iglesia reveals a tremendously stylised eye,as La Iglesia and Fraile use jagged,complex tracking shots to show the tightening of Elisa and Miguel’s relationship,as La Iglesia superbly uses short,sharp ‘dry’ shots to guarantee that this scream will be heard.

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