Stockholm Film Festival

During the communion in a church,
all the members of the congregation fall down, poisoned to death. The trail leads to a group of teenagers who experiment with drugs and the occult. But suddenly the dead wake up and the men of the church are forced to re-examine their faith, in several ways.
The Spanish production company that produced the film like to stress that Memorias ... has inherited several components from Omen, Agnes of God,
The Exorcistand other real horror movies.
But it is not in the sense of a horror movie that I see this film. It is closer at hand to present it as a philosophical drama that deals with existentialist questions. The bel ief of the priests is put against the pol ice in their hunt for the truth, and the expertise of the doctors. Belief against science, the supernatural against the rational.
The imagery exhibits - and it is here one can find parallels to horror movies, such as The Shining-famous Christian symbols, taken both from the Bible and from the Christian history of art. Crosses are created from crowds and furniture, even the pattern of movement of the characters create crosses, as well as
the movements of the camera. A computer is included in the holy trinity, and corpses are presented in the classic reverence, with Mary and the dead Jesus. The pictures give associations to the religious motifs in the artist Andres Serrano's sensational photographs.
The film centers around the conflict between belief and science. The story of Lucifer, the angel who fell down from heaven and became the evil, is discussed. One of the men of the church dismisses
a doubter by saying that Lucifer was only a myth. But, as the doubter answers,
is not then all of Christianity a myth?
HELENA HEDERBERG

Premiärstatus

Skandinavisk premiär

Orig. titel

Memorias Del Angel Caido

Medverkande

Santiago Ramos, Hector Alterio, Jose Luis Lopez Vasquez, Emilio Gutierrez Caba, Juan Echanove

Producent

Luis Mendez Zori

Manus

David Alonso,Fernando Cámara

Foto

Fernando Arribas

Musik

Javier Camara

Talat språk

Spanish

 

Andra filmer från sektionen Twilight Zone

Se alla festivalfilmer från 1998