Oculto (2005)

Director:

Antonio Hernández

Writers:

Enrique Brasó (writer)
Antonio Hernández (writer)

Release Date:

4 November 2005 (Spain)

Genre:

Drama

Cast

Laia Marull	...	Beatriz
Leonardo Sbaraglia	...	Alex
Angie Cepeda	...	Natalia
Gerardo Malla	...	Prof. Wissman
Joaquín Climent	...	Roberto
Geraldine Chaplin	...	Adele
Emma Cohen	...	Leonor
William Miller	...	Javier
Marta Aledo	...	Inés
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Marta Belenguer
Antonio José Cuenca	...	Figurante de calle
Israel Elejalde	...	Tatuador
Xavier Murua
Juan Pérez	...	Figurante de calle
Gary Piquer
Jennifer Rope
Sergio Sánchez	...	Chico Rubio
Antonio de la Vega	...	Ejecutivo
Penélope Velasco	...	Adriana

Also Known As:

The Hidden (International: English title)

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

Italy | UK | Spain

Language:

Spanish

Colour:

Colour

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Australia:MA

Company:

Future Films

See it before Hollywood remakes it

Spain these days has kind of replaced Italy and Britain in offering a European alternative to Hollywood-dominated genre films. These recent Spanish films are enough like Hollywood movies to be dismissed as "rip-offs" by the more ignorant viewers, but they nevertheless tend to have a distinctly European flavor to them as well (which was also true of the British and Italian genre films back in their heyday). However, if anything, it is Hollywood that seems to be ripping off i.e. "remaking" Spanish films these days rather than the reverse. This movie would probably be a good candidate for a Hollywood re-make, but a name cast of Hollywood actors would probably only serve to overwhelm this nifty, efficient little thriller as happened a few years back with "Abre los Ojos", later remade as "Vanilla Sky".

This starts out as a movie that seems to be about dreams and dream interpretation. A woman (the incredibly sexy Columbian actress Angela Cepeda) relates at a conference on dreams some allegedly prophetic dreams she had. This seems to stir something in another woman (Laia Murall, who in contrast to Cepeda, is merely really, really cute) and she faints. The Murall character approaches another attendee, a handsome young male, to get him to put in touch with the Cepeda character. The former seems to have some kind of strange hidden agenda, however (the title of this movie in English would be "Hidden"). At first, it seems she might faking the dream connection in order to have an excuse to stalk the guy, and indeed a love triangle does develop for awhile, but she actually has even more deeply hidden motives that aren't completely revealed until the final frames of the film. This isn't perhaps the most original film ever made, but it certainty keep the audience guessing for awhile.

The acting is very decent and Cepeda, who played "La Colombiana" in the Latin American movie "Pantaleon y los Visatadores" has yet another highly memorable nude sex scene. Check this out before Hollywood discovers it and makes their own bigger-budgeted, but no doubt inferior, remake of it.