Elemental Movies

Movie Review: Hierro

Ahem… Hrm…
I hadn’t read anything at all about this movie when I arrived to the press screening. I had totally forgotten about it. A Spanish movie. Apparently a thriller.
I looked it up on the IMDb after the screening. Director Gabe Ibáñez has previously mainly worked as an animator and among other movies, he’s contributed to the weird flop PERDITA DURANGO. HIERRO received an award at the horror film festival Fantasporto in Portugal (Best Actress) and another one at the horror fest in Sitges (Best Actress) where it also was nominated for Best Movie.
It starts out pretty good. A car drives along a desolate road in the middle of the night. Dramatic, horror movie style music on the soundtrack. A woman and her little son are in the car. Suddenly the car goes off the road and ends up in the sea. After this, we skip forward and meet another woman, María, played Elena Anaya. She’s about to go on a holiday with her five-year-old son Diego. On the ferry to the island El Hierro, María nods off and when she wakes up, Diego is gone. He’s nowhere to be found aboard the boat.
Along with a friend, María – getting more and more hysterical – goes looking for the kid. She imagines seeing him everywhere. He’s sitting on the beach. He’s in a trailer. The cops have found the body of a drowned boy, but when identifying him, María notes it isn’t Diego.
When she isn’t looking for the boy, María likes walking topless on the beach below threatening skies, while dramatic music honks in the background. She also likes taking showers, meaning some nude scenes, which are ruined by her nervous breakdowns. Dammit!
It all leads to a surprising twist we could see coming half way through. “Hierro” feels like an episode of “The Twilight Zone” stretched out to ninety minutes. The spare dialogue and the few characters make the movie seems even longer.
As I mentioned, Ibáñez’s movie begins pretty good and creates some expectations; what if this totally unknown movie turns out really great? But it doesn’t take long before I’m irritated and bored. There isn’t much more going on than this woman walking around the island looking for the kid. Yeah, it’s supposed to be a thriller, maybe even a horror-thriller, but I’ve no idea what the heck this is…
…besides a movie that makes me wonder why it gets a theatrical release. Lots of good – and great – movies never get a chance in theatres. And here comes an obscure and uninteresting thing and occupies a bunch of screens – and definitely not a bunch of seats.
“Hierro” screams “Straight to DVD” and proves that a movie doesn’t have to be better or interesting just because it isn’t in English.
At the moment, “Hierro” is playing the festival circuit and has opened wide in a few European countries. An American opening date is yet to be announced.

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