By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.75 cats
Director: Joaquín Oristrell
Starring: Alex Brendemühl | Leonor Watling | Luis Tosar
Original language title: Inconscientes
Country: germany, italy, portugal, spain
Year: 2007
Running time: 100
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395173/
Bruce says: “The Spanish are becoming quite proficient in the farce department. This delightful comedy is a period piece involving a Freud disciple named León (Alex Brendemühl) who suddenly disappears thereby creating havoc in his intersecting professional and family circles. The surly housekeeper he mysteriously hired a few months earlier seems to know more than she’s letting on.
“León’s wife Alma (Leonor Watling) enlists the help of Salvador (Luis Tosar), her sister’s husband, in finding out why León has disappeared. Salvador, we quickly learn, is more interested in making love to his sister-in-law than he is in helping to find her husband. It appears that Salvador’s affections are not unrequited. León has been using Freudian techniques on four patients. After Alma finds León’s session notes, she and Salvador become amateur sleuths and track down the patients one by one in order to discover clues about León’s disappearance. Their detective work uncovers a panoply of aberrant sexual behaviors. Alma and Salvador are invited to an underground drag ball where further shocks await them. Alma’s father, Dr. Mira (Juanjo Puigcorbé) is a leading figure in the mental health field. He, too, begins demonstrating strange behavior. It all adds up to a glorious romp, exposing the hypocrisies of the times.
“Leonor Watling and Luis Tosar (MIAMI VICE and MONDAYS IN THE SUN) have the perfect sizzling chemistry and comedic timing to carry off their demanding roles. Watling has appeared in an impressive array of films such as THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS, BAD EDUCATION, CRÓNICAS, MY LIFE WIHTOUT ME, TALK TO HER and MY MOTHER LIKES WOMEN. UNCONSCIOUS raises the bar for displaying her talents.
“The generally well-acted, well-written UNCONSCIOUS has some minor weak moments. A Dr. Alzheimer is the source of an obvious and unnecessary joke and Dr. Miri chews up the scenery when he would have been funnier had he been more restrained. 4 cats”
Michael says: “While it sometimes feels that all of the Spanish films I see are wacky comedies, Oristrell’s UNCONSCIOUS adds some interesting twists to this one. Set in 1913, UNCONCSIOUS uses the theories of Sigmund Freud coupled with an impressive array of sexual taboos to create a marvelously humorous mystery about a missing man. León is a psychoanalyst who uses the latest teachings of Freud to help his patients. When he abruptly leaves his very pregnant wife Alma and subsequently disappears from everyone’s lives, a mystery is born. Alma turns to her sister’s husband Salvador for help. Salvador is also a doctor, and despite being Alma’s brother-in-law, is secretly in love with her, and cannot resist her pleas for help, even when it puts them both in danger. Using León’s journal, they must discover the identities of each of four patients whose stories will reveal the whereabouts and convoluted secrets of this rather unconventional family. Along the way, they uncover some fairly deviant sexual practices (for the time) and draw closer to finding León. When the whole story is ultimately revealed we’ve pretty much hit all the sexual taboos Freud was fascinated with.
“Certainly UNSCONSCIOUS is satirizing the conventions of the time, but I am not so familiar with 1913 Barcelona, so I cannot comment on its success. It is certainly an entertaining film, peppered with absurd, Almodovaresque dialogue, and surprisingly bizarre circumstances. Leonor Watling, who had roles in Isabel Coixet’s two films MY LIFE WITH OUT ME and this year’s THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS, is delightfully charming in this comedic role, and Luis Tosar, also an established actor in Spain whose roles include MIAMI VICE and Álex de la Iglesia’s THE COMMONWEALTH, share a successful chemistry in their slow-burn relationship. 3 ½ cats”