‘Ropes’ (Cuerdas) Dir. José Luis Montecinos

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. With multiple awards for his six short films behind him, writer/ director José Luis Montecinos has finally plunged into his first feature with a dark thriller laced with horror at every turn.

by Corina J Poore

José Luis Montecinos, born in Tarragona, Spain, has excelled with his earlier short films. The latest was ‘El Corredor’ (2015) where a desperate man goes out to run for the first time. It won the coveted GOYA, represented Spain at the Oscars and picked up a clutch of awards at the festivals. His very first short was in 2002, ‘Físico’ (2002) which also did well, as did the following short ‘Final’ in 2003 that picked up no less than 30 awards, including the Best Short Film at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Montecinos then filmed a sharp satire on film festivals with ‘Fest’ in 2008. An unhappy man tries to save his marriage (with the magical Miguel Ángel Jenner) laying it open for all to see in ‘La Historia de Siempre (2010) followed by a film about two children who create a homemade shooting device in the dark fable ‘Matagatos’ (Cat Killer 2011). Montecinos was already rehearsing for his feature.

José luis Montesinoc.jpg

José Luis Montecinos

In ‘Ropes’, a young quadriplegic girl, Elena, (magnificently played by Paula del Río) finds herself alone as she is recovering from an horrific accident that crippled her and killed her sister Vera. Haunted by this event, she is beset by fears and nightmares. Her ailing father, Miguel (Miguel Ángel Jenner) decides she needs a quiet place to recover and takes her back to the rural and isolated country home where they used to live, when her sister Vera and their mother were still alive. In the front courtyard, a well, that was the sister’s childhood wishing well, still stands ominously shrouded in memories. Even though Miguel had, earlier, managed to stop Elena committing suicide with pills, she cannot confront her reality and continues to wish she was dead.

Jordi Aguilar, Paula del Río and Espiona.jpeg

Jordi Aguilar as SALVA and Athos (played by Espiona and Lily) the dog.

Elena is strapped into her electric wheelchair and Miguel has trained Athos, an Alsatian dog, to help out by turning on lights and opening doors. To this end, all switches and handles have cords attached (Ropes). However, having been bitten by a bat, the dog’s behaviour is strangely altered and, as a result, Elena becomes terrified for her life and it ends up being a desperate fight for survival.

Co-written with his long-time collaborator Iako Blesa, ‘Ropes’ (2019) has had an excellent start winning the Best Feature as well as the Best Actress awards at the Grimmfest in Manchester. The film has also been screened in competition at the Sitges Film Festival (Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya). This is considered one of the most popular festivals for fantasy and horror movies. Last year’s winners were Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles with their super dark Western ‘Bacurau’ (2019) set in the desolate badlands of North Eastern Brazil. (see Review: https://www.latinolife.co.uk/articles/‘bacurau’-2019-dir-juliano-dornelles-kleber-mendonça-filho).

Paula del Río as Vera and Elena.jpeg

Paula del Río as Elena and her sister Vera.

Director Montecinos relies initially, on a number of clichés. There is the isolated farmhouse, the helplessly trapped protagonist and the beast… but Montecinos is open about his influences, in particular Stephen King. The publicity mentions Stephen King’s ‘Cujo’ in which there is a rabid dog. It could be said that King’s other classics also relate to a fight for survival when trapped, such as ‘Gerald’s Game’, Alfonso Caurón’s ‘Gravity’ (2013), or even George A. Romero’s ‘ Monkey Shines( 1988)’ in which a paralyzed quadriplegic develops a relationship with a monkey called Ella, who turns on him. But despite the influences, Montecinos has his own voice and this is deeply disturbing film.

Montecinos: -

“I always work with stories with strong dramas and with characters with traumas, who use all their energies to remove an obstacle.”

Elena is beset with a deep guilt, feeling herself responsible, perhaps even knowing herself responsible, for the family tragedy and her dreams, hallucinations and nightmares are filled with the taunts and revelations of her dead sister. Is it a ghost or her own imagination? Paula del Rَío plays both Elena and her sister. These are two opposing personalities which, apparently, Paula del Río felt was very liberating, as playing the trapped quadriplegic was affecting her emotionally.

Montecinos:-

“In a lot of monster films, they cut from the beast to the human. He wanted both to be interacting together in the same frame. This was a huge challenge and it demanded specific training on the part of the animals. The pet ferret was originally supposed to be a cat, but they are notoriously hard to train and have a nasty habit of doing exactly as they please, which is often the opposite of what the director wanted. So, it had to be replaced with a more trainable creature.”

In ‘Ropes’, as possibly in many a psychoanalyst’s ‘dream’ interpretation textbooks, the beast represents inner fears and unresolved conflicts. But at times, Montecinos has not trusted his audience enough and leaves too little for them to work out for themselves. There are some inconsistencies that could easily have been resolved in pre-production. Rabies takes a minimum of 9 days to incubate. It might have been more convincing to add a scene during which the dog had been bitten earlier during his training. Nevertheless, the tour- de - force performance from Paula del Río carries the film. She is consistent and holds her own on the screen at all times, considering she is virtually in every single shot, this is no mean feat. Her situation is also truly horrific: a quadriplegic trapped inside the walls of an attractive country home that has lain unused for some time. We get clues, very early on, that the father is unwell and frail.

Montecinos plays on the psychology of the situation as Elena gradually understands the gravity of her predicament. In view of her earlier wish to die, the plot twists are interesting and take us on a suspenseful journey. To his credit, Montecinos carefully avoided special effects and gimmicks. The colour grading is very effective, with colour drained from the visuals, plunging the viewer into the nightmarish internal world that Elena inhabits, even before the dog becomes infected. Her darkest fears materialize in the beast and she oscillates between the terror of her present reality and her guilt and fears of inadequacy, that have already raised their ugly heads in her early childhood. The black dog is like a symbol of the darkness that lies within her, will she deal with it, or will it devour her?

Paula del Río as Vera .jpeg

Paula del Río as Vera

The darkness of the backstory, which suggests that she might really have been responsible for the accident and that her hatred of her sister was not only based on deep - seated sibling rivalry but a profound envy that was tearing her apart, brings the brutal violence to the fore. Is she the beast herself? It is a kind of coming–of-age story in its own way, as she discovers her real emotions and is gradually able to come to terms with them.

The title of the production is interesting as apparently in Russia, the title means ‘Rabid’ while in Japan in means ‘Mad Dog’. ‘Cuerdas,’ as it is named in Spanish, also has connotations in some Latin American Countries, where to be cuerda is to be ‘sane’ in Argot.

Montecinos sees it as a ‘survival’ film, which prevents it from being merely depressing. He has shown great potential with this production and is already working on his second feature with his co-writer Iako Blesa. This time, however, he stresses that he wants to work with humans and not animals like last time… and he does not want to make another ‘genre’ movie.

“We had only four weeks to make ‘Ropes’, which was difficult. Next time, I want more time, so I have more time to think and compose the takes. But in considering my wishes, sometimes what you wish for turns out to be a nightmare when they come true: one of my wishes was to do my first movie. Then when it arrived, the conditions were different to what I expected, now we have been hit by this virus and everything has stopped. My lesson now is to live in the moment and not be so obsessed with carrying out my dream."

Paula del Río (2).jpeg s.”