Barbazul (Jac Avila) sits in on a photoshoot with young model Soledad
(Mila Joya), and while the photographer (Erik Antoine) proves to be a
perfect arsehole, Barbazul befriends the young woman, soon takes her on
dates, proposes to her - and promises to take care of her student sister
Ana's (Mariela Salaverry) tuition and stuff. Soon, Soledad moves in with
Barbazul in his remote wine plantation, and he gives her all the keys of
his vast farmhouse, but warns her to never use the key to his study ...
but of course, at the first opportunity - when he's gone to fetch Ana for
a visit, actually - Soledad enters the study ... a rather uninteresting
room actually, if it wasn't for Barbazul's diary, which Soledad soon
starts to read ... The diary starts with the story of Barbazul's first
wife Annabelle (Veronica Paintoux), a still very pretty model at about the
end of her career. Just like Soledad, Barbazul had met Annabelle at a
photoshoot, befriended her, datedher, proposed to her, married her, and
taken her to his plantation. However, she soon felt like a prisoner in his
remote farmhouse and because of his refusal to take her anywhere, so she
wanted to seperate ... and he strangled her. Not too long after that,
Barbazul met singer Maga (Paola Terán) at a concert. The two soon fell in
love, and he took her to his farmhouse to keep her - but she didn't want
to give up her music career, so he knifed and strangled her. Art lover
Agatha (Erika Saavedra) was just a bossy bitch who wanted to take over too
much of Barbazul's life ... but she found it rather sexy of him to tie her
to a bed in the nude - her bad judgement and her demise! Erotic novelist
Jane (Amy Hesketh) was really creative when it came to their sex life, and
the handcuffs and whips were actually her idea ... and also her end. Soledad
has just finished reading the diary when Barbazul returns with Ana, as
promised, and of course knowing all this she's scared shitless. And of
course Barbazul finds out she has been to his study and read his diary,
and ... Based on a fairytale, this starts like a rather typical
(if impressively shot) romance, and only the murder (of Amy Hesketh) at
the beginning of the movie suggests there is something wrong - which of
course creates just the right atmosphere of unease for the film to never
lose its edge. Add to this a directorial effort that's subtle enough and
lets the film flow at a fittingly moderate pace, but doesn't shy away from
more extreme images when needed (like in most of Amy Hesketh's own scenes
of the rather shocking finale), a uniformly very competent cast, and
wonderful locations, and you've got yourself a pretty impressive film. Recommended,
actually!
Oh, and if my review at all got you interested, you may want to get the
movie from here: http://movies.vermeerworks.com
or http://vermeerworks.com/store/dvds/
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