The Detective and Death

(EL DETECTIVE Y LA MUERTE) ((SPANISH))

A UIP release (Spain) of a Ditirambo Films/Lola Films production, in association with Studio Tor, Sigma, with the participation of TVE and Canal Plus. (International sales: Iberoamericana Films, Madrid.) Produced by Andres Vicente Gomez. Executive producer, Miguel Angel Barbero. Directed by Gonzalo Suarez. Screenplay, Suarez, with the collaboration of Azucena Rodriguez.

Detective (Cornelio) ... Javier Bardem
Maria ... Maria de Medeiros
Dark Man ... Carmelo Gomez
G.M. ... Hector Alterio
Duchess ... Charo Lopez
Laura ... Mapi Galan
Donluis ... Francis Lorenzo
Ofelia ... Paulina Gomez

Commanding perfs and arresting visuals are put to work on a bizarre meeting between film noir and gruesome fairytale in "The Detective and Death." But seasoned Spanish helmer Gonzalo Suarez takes on a load of fabulist, philosophical baggage and distracting peripheral characters that encumber the lugubrious thriller with pretentious hokum. Keen craftsmanship might see this one to some festival play, but theatrically it looks far too esoteric to make a killing.

Suarez reworks Hans Christian Andersen's fable "The Story of a Mother" in a modern but no less surreal setting. The original recounts a mother's trek through a labyrinthine forest to reclaim her child from Death. This version charts a nightmarish odyssey across a nameless European city wracked by crime and racial violence, with an unscrupulous business magnate known as G.M. (for Grande Mierda) holding the power to grant or deny life.

In his fortress-like blue headquarters, G.M. (Hector Alterio) is facing his own imminent death from illness. Before he goes, however, he determines to satisfy the birthday wish of his comely daughter and lover, Laura (Mapi Galan), to have her estranged mother (Charo Lopez) killed.

G.M.'s wayward employee, the Detective (Javier Bardem), lands the job of bringing her in. Knowing the love-struck Detective will try to save his intended victim, his admiring adversary, the Dark Man (Carmelo Gomez), tails him.

Having painstakingly constructed a fanciful thriller premise, Suarez hauls in the fairytale brigade. A forlorn mother with an ailing baby, Maria (Maria de Medeiros), crosses paths with the Dark Man and the Detective. She latches onto the Detective, believing he can lead her to G.M., with whom she plans to bargain for her son's life.

The central section is particularly tough going, with a barrage of superfluous characters laboriously drawn.

Looking uncannily alike at times, Bardem and Gomez are well paired as the story's good and evil travelers. Bardem won the San Sebastian fest's best actor honors for his roles here and in main prize winner "Numbered Days." Both pix flaunt a darker side of the actor than his beefcake turns in Bigas Luna's "Jamon , Jamon" and "Golden Balls." Medeiros' edge-of-madness act is occasionally overwrought, but she effectively builds the desperate ferocity of a mother's love into a force to be reckoned with.

Alain Bainee's stylish production design, and the bleak, wintry Polish locations, are given a grim allure by lenser Carlos Suarez (the director's brother). But the film's gloomy, deeply tonal look could have benefited from widescreen.

Camera (color), Carlos Suarez; editor, Jose Salcedo; music, Suso Saiz; production design, Alain Bainee; set decoration, Allan Starsky; costume design, Yvonne Blake; sound (Dolby),Krzysztof Grabowski; associate producers, Sylvia Suarez, Manuel Lombardero, Ignacio Martinez; assistant director, Fernando Pacheco; casting, Magda Szwarcbart. Reviewed at San Sebastian Film Festival (competing), Sept. 22, 1994. Running time:109 MIN.

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