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The Hidden Face (film)
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Wikipedia article
'The Hidden Face' is a 2011 SpanishColombian thriller film directed by Andrs Baiz. It stars Quim Gutirrez, Clara Lago and Martina Garca. The film was remade in Bollywood titled 'Murder 3' (2013), Turkey titled teki Taraf (2017) and in Mexico titled 'Perdida' (2019).
Plot
Adrin (Quim Gutierrez), a young orchestra conductor is viewing a recorded video of his girlfriend Beln (Clara Lago) informing him of leaving him. Adrin becomes distraught. While drinking away his sorrows at a bar, he meets Fabiana (Martina Garcia) and they develop a relationship. Fabiana moves into the house that Adrin was sharing with Beln. Strange things begin to occur in the bathroom, with Fabiana observing strange noises coming from the sink and bathtub, and being scalded by an abruptly hot shower.
Adrin becomes a suspect in the disappearance of Beln, however, the investigators can find no evidence of Adrin's involvement in Beln's disappearance. One of the police investigators, apparently a former boyfriend of Fabiana, warns Adrin that if anything happens to Fabiana he will kill Adrin.
It is revealed that the house is owned by a German lady, Emma, who shows Beln a secret room built to hide her husband just in case someone came to look for him, since he was a former Nazi SS officer. The room is self-contained and sealed off from sound. On Emma's suggestion, Beln, jealous of Adrin's flirtatious relationship with one of his violinists, Vernica, decided to pretend she is leaving him. She records the video saying she is leaving as she hides in the secret room. The room has some one way mirrors where she can observe Adrin's reaction. When she decides he has had enough she looks for the key and realizes she lost the key and is now trapped in the room with no way to contact Adrin.
Fabiana finds the key to the secret room, but she doesn't know what it is used for. Fabiana eventually figures out that Beln is trapped in the house because Beln is able to communicate through tapping on the pipes in the secret room, creating ripples in the full bathroom sink. As Fabiana is ready to open the door, she pauses and decides not to rescue Beln because she might lose Adrin.
Fabiana struggles with her decision, but decides to open the door and check on Beln because she can't get a response from her. Also, one of the investigators gave Fabiana pictures of Adrin and Vernica and she herself feels the pangs of jealousy. As Fabiana is checking on Beln laying in a bed in the secret room, Beln surprises Fabiana and knocks her out and leaves Fabiana locked in the room. Beln decides to leave the house. She leaves the key to the secret room on a bed for Adrin to find and leaves a picture of the two of them taped to the mirror that acts as the door to the secret room. The final scene shows Beln sitting on the beach alone and Fabiana trapped inside hoping to be rescued.
Cast
* Quim Gutierrez - Adrin Salamanca
* Clara Lago - Beln Echeverria
* Martina Garca - Fabiana Caicedo
* Marcela Mar - Vernica
* Humberto Dorado - Roberto Pea (Tito)
* Julio Pachn - Francisco Jos Buitrago
* Juan Alfonso Baptista - Bernardo Ramrez
* Alexandra Stewart - Emma Engel
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on 5 reviews. Jonathan Holland from 'Variety' wrote: "Andi Baiz's ambitious follow-up to the well-received 'Satans' does decent crowd-pleasing work, supplying the requisite jolts and nervous giggles en route to a payoff that's much stronger than its wobbly setup. But the pic ultimately fails to marshal its effects into anything more than throwaway entertainment." Chris Hewitt from St. Paul Pioneer Press gave a positive review, he wrote: "I'm not sure 'La Cara Oculta' can stand up to much scrutiny there's at least one gaping plot hole but it's plenty of fun while its 93 minutes are zipping by." Jordi Batlle Caminal from Spanish newspaper 'La Vanguardia' described the film as "(according to its own director) a tribute to Hitchcock's 'Rebecca', 'Suspicion' and 'Notorious'... 'The Hidden Face' reveals itself as a suspense film well filmed and effective, willing to style and smoothly: tension is uniform and never decays."
See also
* List of Spanish films of 2011
References
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