I watched this film with English subtitles, so I may have missed some of the subtleties in the original Spanish. However, I don't feel that the film suffered in any way.
A group of friends gather for a weekend to renew 'friendships' from 20 years ago, and the reunion isn't going well - if someone stripped naked and threw their clothes on the bonfire I'd be thinking it was time everyone went to bed. Just before the party disintegrates there's a loud noise, strange lights in the sky and everything stops working, everything.
With no power, so no lights and no phones, everyone goes to bed. In the morning there is one person missing. He just disappeared. The group make for the nearest town and on the way they start to disappear, one by one. Eventually we're down to the last few, and the film ends.
There's no explanation for the power cuts, what the lights were, why people are disappearing, why the people are disappearing in the order they are, why only people are disappearing and not birds and animals and why most people disappear when nobody is looking at them. There's no explanation at all. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
With the lack of explanation, all you're left with is the journey, and I did find some of the journey interesting. I wasn't that interested in the interactions of the characters and, as usual, I'm glad some of them disappeared. I think I detected a pattern as to the order people disappeared in, but some people vanished in the night, so I'm not entirely sure. As the dwindling group move from their holiday home across a gorge and towards the nearest town there are some good moments: a vulture makes an unexpected appearance and death by goats is a novelty I wasn't expecting.
Sadly, with no explanation, and no real ending, the film is a complete let down. However, until the very end I found the film worth watching, with moments of slowly-building tension, the unexplained disappearances to fathom out, and some great scenery to watch. However, when you get to the end and nothing is explained, watching the film just becomes a very flat experience.
This is the way the film ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
A group of friends gather for a weekend to renew 'friendships' from 20 years ago, and the reunion isn't going well - if someone stripped naked and threw their clothes on the bonfire I'd be thinking it was time everyone went to bed. Just before the party disintegrates there's a loud noise, strange lights in the sky and everything stops working, everything.
With no power, so no lights and no phones, everyone goes to bed. In the morning there is one person missing. He just disappeared. The group make for the nearest town and on the way they start to disappear, one by one. Eventually we're down to the last few, and the film ends.
There's no explanation for the power cuts, what the lights were, why people are disappearing, why the people are disappearing in the order they are, why only people are disappearing and not birds and animals and why most people disappear when nobody is looking at them. There's no explanation at all. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
With the lack of explanation, all you're left with is the journey, and I did find some of the journey interesting. I wasn't that interested in the interactions of the characters and, as usual, I'm glad some of them disappeared. I think I detected a pattern as to the order people disappeared in, but some people vanished in the night, so I'm not entirely sure. As the dwindling group move from their holiday home across a gorge and towards the nearest town there are some good moments: a vulture makes an unexpected appearance and death by goats is a novelty I wasn't expecting.
Sadly, with no explanation, and no real ending, the film is a complete let down. However, until the very end I found the film worth watching, with moments of slowly-building tension, the unexplained disappearances to fathom out, and some great scenery to watch. However, when you get to the end and nothing is explained, watching the film just becomes a very flat experience.
This is the way the film ends, not with a bang but a whimper.