Sitges 2008: RAMIREZ Review

Posted by Todd Brown at 1:14pm.

Posted in Film & DVD Reviews , Thriller, Continental Europe & Russia, Sitges 2008.

Since seeing the very first stills from acclaimed music video director Albert Arizza’s feature debut Ramirez early this year, we have been struck by obvious sense of style and skill for composition. Clearly Arizza can shoot quality film. Anticipation grew as footage appeared - and disappeared - on the web and now Ramirez has finally taken its first step into the public eye, screening as a work-in-progress here in Sitges.

A surprisingly poetic and gently rhythmic film, Ramirez is a study of young Sebastian Ramirez: aspiring photographer, low level drug dealer, and highly accomplished serial killer.

Sebastian Ramirez appears to have it all. He is young, attractive and - judging from his car and his clothes - reasonably wealthy. The only significant flaw in his life would appear to be his seriously ill mother, a woman Ramirez feels so little sympathy for - and for good reason - that he won’t even visit her when back at the family home. Ramirez lives a fairly carefree life, drifting easily from day to day, doing what he wants when he wants with no need to worry about cost or consequence. Not so lucky are the young women Ramirez meets in bars or picks up along the road. No, they are not so lucky at all for while Ramirez may be charming and attractive he is also a smooth, lethal predator, one who has linked sex and death in his own mind - a combination that leads to a handful of missing person’s reports in the few days covered by the film’s chronology.

Yes, the serial killer film has been done before but it has seldom been attempted quite like this. Shot digitally on an impossibly small budget Ramirez the film takes on the sort of chill out jazz tone of the music preferred by Ramirez the character. Arizza offers neither excuse nor explanation for Ramirez’s behavior, instead his camera simply observes, creating a quietly intimate portrayal of his character. Arizza has a stellar eye for composition and a rhythmic approach to editing - the multi tasking Arizza also wrote and co-produced the film - and draws an excellent performance out of lead actor Christian Magaloni, who has the potential to be a major star.

While most films of this genre go for the big shock, for the big kill scene, Ramirez takes the exact opposite approach. This is film as a form of portraiture and it is an intriguing little experiment by a very talented film maker.

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Reader Comments

Colmac 10/08/2008 @ 4:59am

Pretty much spot on for us Todd. We were at the 17:30 showing of Ramirez at the Prado Sunday 5th where Arizza and Magaloni gave a brief introduction to the film. We thought Arizza did a great job though at times the film seemed to lack polish. Your comment about this still being a work-in-progress (we didn’t realise - perhaps he mentioned this in Spanish during the introduction) would explain this, though we felt this also extended to the editing. As for Magaloni we also thought this was a great performance. He’s got a natural on screen presence and is equally as effective with or without words. To top things off we bumped into him near The Auditori and just took a moment to congratulate him on his performance. He seemed genuinely pleased to have the feedback. We certainly hope he’s got a long future ahead.