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 aume Balaguero's The Nameless is a stylish
psychological thriller that owes more than just a cursory homage to the works of
American director David Fincher, who has revolutionize the way films are shot
with his neon colors and pale color-tinted gels. Fincher's works on movies like Fight
Club, The Game, and most influential of all,
Seven, has been
copied over and over by various people around the world. This is not to say
writer/director Balaguero does not have a distinctive voice, but it should be
noted that his 1999's The Nameless owes more than a passing resemblance
to Fincher's works.
The Nameless opens with the apparently discovery of
a body belonging to Angela, a pre-teen who has been missing for quite some time.
Her parents, especially her mother Claudia (Emma Vilarasau), are expecting the
worst when the phone call finally arrives from the police. The detective on the
case is Bruno (Karra Elejalde), a long-time veteran who specializes in missing
persons cases. Fast-forward 5 years, and Bruno has since retired from the force
because of personal tragedies stemming from the death of his wife a year
earlier.
Claudia, on the other hand, has still not gotten over the grief of losing her
only daughter, and she has since separated from her husband as a result. One day, the phone
rings again, and a young, female voice declaring herself to be Claudia's
daughter, Angela, tells her mother that she's alive and well and being held
captive by some people and please, her mother must rescue her before it's too
late...
For much of The Nameless, I was very struck by the
movie's visuals. The movie looks nice, even when it's highlighted by pale
colors. Of course it helps that the movie's lead, Emma Vilarasau, is a highly
emotive actress, and relays her grief and guilt to us with sad
eyes. Emma's Claudia is so far from getting over her loss that her current life
is in shambles until the phone call comes, pushing her back into the hunt for
her daughter.
Claudia goes to the only person who is willing to listen, Bruno,
and the two embark on a personal quest to locate Angela before it's too late.
Until the phone call, the movie moves very slowly, gradually bringing us back
into Claudia's life as she struggles through a simple day. The same is true for
Bruno, who finds his life aimless without work or his deceased wife, and finds a
measure of purpose in helping the distraught Claudia.
The movie's main plot, on the other hand, left me bored.
The thrust of the movie is that Angela is in the hands of some very dangerous
people who may or may not be doing God knows what to her at the moment. The film
is concerned with bodily mutilations and a group of people with histories dating
back to Nazi Germany, during the concentration camps and experiments on Jews. (I
would go on, but it's all very tedious and not nearly as intriguing as the
filmmakers thought. Or at the very least, wasn't nearly as interesting as
portrayed in the film.)
About halfway into the film, a reporter named Quiroga
(Tristan Ulloa) gets into the act, but his only real purpose for existing is to
give exposition on the movie's heavy plot background. Of course, Quiroga's
expositions are necessary because up to its halfway point The Nameless
has been completely disinterested in approaching its own main plot.
The ending is, well...the ending is a little stupid. I was
already disappointed with Balaguero's insinuations that something supernatural was going on, but the ending left me flat. The
villain must have James Bond-itis because he shows up at the very end to deliver a
ridiculous explanation as to why things were happening. The explanations seem to
go on endlessly, and because the movie was so unconcern with approaching its own
main plot until halfway through, there is a lot of explaining to do. At
least James Bonds' villains had the decency to show up at various points
throughout the movie instead of making a glorified cameo at the end.
If not for some inspiring visuals and a highly effective
and involving performance by lead Emma Vilarasau, this movie wouldn't be worth a
casual glance. It's lucky to have what it has, because it certainly proves to be
a strangely fruitless endeavor by movie's end.
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