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DIRECTED BY: Iván Zulueta
FEATURING: Eusebio Poncela, Will More, Cecilia Roth
PLOT: A horror director whose work and relationships are in decline due to his heroin addiction receives a package from an eccentric acquaintance containing a mysterious short film.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: The Spaniards in our audience would never forgive us if we simply disregarded this one.
COMMENTS: As we learn from Mike White’s informative commentary track to Arrebato, director Iván Zulueta was an experimental filmmaker (with one prior feature to his name)—and, at the time he made this movie, a functional heroin addict. This background may explain why the two main characters in Zuleta’s sophomore feature are a filmmaker who is working on his sophomore feature, but seeing his work sabotaged by his growing drug problem, and a younger experimental filmmaker who appears to seek advice from the established director, but actually has more to teach than his mentor. In Arrebato the “raptures” of filmmaking and of opiates become entwined to the point where it’s impossible to decide which serves a metaphor for the other. An oblique version of the Christian sense of “rapture”—being snatched from earthly existence and spirited away to paradise—may also be at play, further complicating matters.
The film’s structure is unusual. It begins with Pedro sending a mysterious audiotape and film strip to José; the tape will supply a running narration throughout the film that explains much of the backstory. Listening to the tape induces two flashbacks describing the characters’ previous encounters. We meet Pedro in the flesh in these flashbacks, and his portrayal by Will More is… curious. On tape, his voice affects an unnaturally raspy delivery; in person, it’s high-pitched, like a kid’s. We first meet him in his child-man persona, throwing a childish fit when an experiment in filming a tree is briefly interrupted. He then hangs around in the background silently, with a bug-eyed stare, or shows up holding a creepy doll. When he takes cocaine, however, the drug paradoxically slows him down and turns him into a coherent, if heavy-lidded, adult; his hairstyle even changes from an unkempt bushy mop to a slicked back greaser ‘do. Later, the script will give Pedro the chance to act in a parody of a Kenneth Anger motorcycle fetish film, and to languish as a strung-out junkie (in withdrawal not from heroin, but from the ecstasy of film). More’s crazy performance is sort of like a Spanish Nicolas Cage operating under a heavy dose of barbiturates. Some will find it adds pleasantly to the weirdness; I thought it was distractingly goofy.
It’s not always clear, without paying attention to contextual clues (i.e. the progression of José’s addiction), what time period we’re in; still, the movie’s reputation as “confusing” is greatly overblown. The narrative, in fact, is simple to follow; the real confusion is thematic. This is one of those movies that has too many ideas, and might have done better to focus on just one or two. To the central idea of a merger between drug and filmic rapture states, we have a series of inserts of Pedro’s experimental short films (mostly in the herky-jerky time-lapse style); philosophical excursions revolving around notions of rhythm and pause; coded homoeroticism (Pedro and José lounging together in bed); inconsistent references to vampirism; Pedro’s oscillations between childhood and adulthood; a female character voiced by a pre-fame Pedro Almódovar; the suggestion of Pedro and José as a split personality; a Betty Boop-themed seduction; and all of the various senses of “rapture” constantly crowding each other out. These colliding ideas and gambits harmonize inconsistently: the exploration of José and Ana’s disintegrating relationship works well as a subplot, but some bits, like Pedro’s detour into depravity through a punk rock-scored rough-trade threesome in an elevator, don’t make much sense. It almost goes without saying that there’s no rational explanation for the ending. Arrebato is a mostly delightful, sometimes frustrating mess, best seen as Zulueta’s onscreen self-psychoanalysis, performed in a post-Franco atmosphere of loosened censorship that encouraged ecstatic excess. Any meaning the tale suggests disappears into the spaces between frames.
Arrebato was beloved by many Spaniards (and championed by Almódovar), but was unavailable outside of Spain for many years— and rarely screened even there. That changed in 2021 with the release of a restored version of the film to U.S. theaters, followed by a DVD and Blu-ray from weird/queer distributor Altered Innocence, via their arty “Anus Films” (groan) imprint. Visually, the print is grainy rather than pristine, appropriate for a movie in which the physicality of celluloid is immanent: the shooting, editing and processing of film is central to the plot. The experimental soundtrack (by Zulueta, with a contemporary punk anthem thrown in) is exceptional. The only special feature is the aforementioned Mike White commentary track, which gives important background information assisting viewers in appreciating this odd and sometimes difficult film.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by “squater,” who raved “I’m sure any weird movie lover will recognise Arrebato as one of the weirdest movies in the world.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
I watched this on YouTube after reading this post. Another gem I found via this website. Thanks to 366 Weird Movies and the viewer who recommended it.
Just saw this yesterday: thank you to my friend who bought the restored copy!
As for “More’s crazy performance,” there were moments when it broke my immersion, but overall I had fun with it.
Despite its shortcomings, I really like this film because it cleverly engages with all the cliches and conventions of the horror genre while remaining a steadfastly unconventional narrative. Anyone who has seen a lot of horror films from the ’70s, but wants something weirder, should check this out.
Some scenes feature all the lurid colors of a giallo, and the plot is even sort of similar to an Argento film, at the beginning, but the director continually plays with and subverts the viewer’s expectations of these qualities, which is part of why I find it so enjoyable to watch. There even seems to be a sort of humor to this, particularly in the opening scenes.
A continual tension builds between the needs to reveal and to conceal, both between the filmmaker and the audience, and the characters in the story, and I really like the way light is used in the visuals to literally highlight this. The characters repeatedly talk about going out into the open air and the need for sunlight, yet the brighter the scenes become, the more obscure the plot. Eventually they are struggling to close window shutters and curtains that emit blinding rays of light, but all the revelation simply leads up to the inscrutable final scene. Rarely is a film so disorienting, menacing, and claustrophobic but also bathed in light, and I commend Zulueta for being able to sustain the atmosphere of unease throughout.
I’m glad to see that my suggested movie is finally reviewed 12 years after my recommendation:
https://366weirdmovies.com/suggest-a-weird-movie/comment-page-12/#comment-30016
It must be in THE LIST!
In our defense, it took them that long to release the film in the U.S. Back when you first recommended it, it was nearly impossible to see the film here.
But it is impressive that we’re honoring our obligations from more than a decade ago, isn’t it?
Yes, it is!
And it is impressive that i’m following the state of Arrebato in your website from more than a decade ago, isn’t it?
Agreed!