Alejandro Amenabar

Alejandro Amenábar was born in Santiago de Chile on March 31, 1972. The son of a Chilean father and a Spanish mother, the truth is that when he was one year old he left with the family for Spain, where he has spent most of his life. He studied with the Piarists in Madrid, and then undertook university studies at the Faculty of Information Sciences, at the Complutense University. There he choked on a subject taught by the professor and film critic Antonio Castro, and it must have marked the thing for the future filmmaker, who would baptize with that name the villain of his feature debut, Thesis (1996), which He was just a guy who taught at the aforementioned college.

But before unofficially “graduating” with Thesis , Amenábar was already pointing out ways in his shorts La cabeza , Himenóptero –from here the future name of his production company will take its name– and Luna . At least that’s what the veteran director José Luis Cuerda believed , who decided to sponsor Thesis after viewing those works. This thriller about the “snuff movies”, which he co-wrote with his friend and colleague Mateo Gil , became one of the most notorious debuts in Spanish cinema, to the point that it won 7 Goyas, including best film and best new director. . He also recovered Ana Torrent from The Spirit of the Hiveand he put Fele Martínez and, above all, the “handsome” Eduardo Noriega on the trigger .

Had Thesis been a mirage, beginner’s luck? Open your eyes proved no. Only a year later he was directing this film with more resources and more complexity, which managed to surprise from the outset with his image of the protagonist in the middle of the completely deserted Gran Vía in Madrid, or with the vertiginous leap from Torre Picasso. Reality, fiction, physical appearance, were themes that added to his previous exploration of the fascination with violence. He did it in a visually powerful way, and trying to control the film as much as possible, also in the musical score, which he would compose for most of his filmography. Perhaps that desire for control gave his films a characteristic coldness, which would be the greatest reproach that his harshest critics would make him.

In any case , Open Your Eyes was liked by none other than Tom Cruise , who would end up starring in the American remake. And this would facilitate the signing of his wife at the time, Nicole Kidman , for Amenábar’s new film, The Others . The director was shooting for the first time in English, and delivered a story indebted to “Another Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, although curiously the director has always stated that he did not know this indispensable ghost story. The film followed a governess who had to take care of the education of some children on an island, where paranormal events occurred that tested her faith. The film would give new Goyas to the director and co-writer, and international projection, since it collected 96 million dollars only in the United States. The agnosticism –later atheism– of the director was also pointed out, more evident in Mar adentro and Ágora .

Amenábar began to take his career calmly, studying very carefully each project in which he was involved. In any case, his abandonment of genre cinema to tackle Mar adentro (2004), based on the real case of the quadriplegic Ramón Sampedro who asked for assistance for his suicide, was surprising, and which brought to the fore in Spain the tricky issue of euthanasia. . The film was obviously ideological, and its director knew how to shoot it intelligently, cornering the darkest side of the protagonist, and with a good direction by actors, Javier Bardem , Belén Rueda and Loles Leónamong others. The director would win multiple awards, including the coveted Oscar for best foreign film. Almost as soon as he started promoting the film, Amenábar made the decision to “come out of the closet” and gave an interview to a gay magazine where he confessed his homosexuality.

Without settling for what has been done up to that moment, and perhaps with Kubrick and his Spartacus in his subconscious, Amenábar will embark on making a historical period film in English about Hypatia of Alexandria, which he presents at Cannes out of competition in 2007. in Agorathis unique character in the midst of a world of men, and once again the director handles powerful images, especially those overhead shots where men resemble miserable insects. The look at Christianity is negative, although the ideal of charity is emphasized, obscurantist fanaticism outweighs, which will end up taking its toll on the protagonist, presented as a lucid model of scientific rationalism, and a precedent for feminism that would still take time to arrive. Despite the attractive international cast and the period reconstruction, the film would only do well at the Spanish box office.

Although focused on his directing tasks, Amenábar has composed soundtracks for others, friends of course: La lengua de las mariposas by Cuerda, Nadie conoce a nadie by Gil. He has also embarked on production tasks, although without one hundred percent immersion, with titles such as  El mal ajeno , by Óskar Santos .