*** This review may contain spoilers ***
*Plot and ending analyzed*
El invernadero
The Greenhouse
This is quite an interesting movie, it is very unique and ambiguous. I really enjoyed the peculiarities that it evoked.
A lonely man who is a librarian, happens to run into a woman at a corner store that he frequents. He later attempts to stop her abusive boyfriend from beating her. He doesn't do much, since he is both inept and weak.
He invites the woman back to his place and he takes care of her bruises and cuts. He even allows her to stay there. They find out that they are neighbors.
The man secretly puts a microphone in the bathroom to listen to the woman when she is showering. You can tell that he has already developed a fixation upon her.
After she does not show up for a dinner engagement, he finds her at a theater rehearsal. She is an actress. He sends her flowers anonymously. But she certainly realizes it was him.
She starts posing at the window and even starts making love to the abusive boyfriend in plain sight. The man enthusiastically takes photographs, and she finds out one day when she sneaks into his darkroom. But she is not bothered by it, actually she is excited, and then she makes a move on the man.
From then on, he can't stop thinking about her.
She disappears one day, and the man gets a phone call from someone telling him to meet at the greenhouse.
He hears the woman's voice behind the numerous plants. She even has a knife in her hand. He gets frightened with the weird things she is saying. To the audience, it seems like she has disappeared into the conglomeration of plant life. That she has become a plant.
It turns out that she is very much alive though, and she was merely scheming with the abusive boyfriend to play a cruel joke on the man.
The man finds it offensive as she tells him that she never loved him. He then attempts to kill the abusive boyfriend. The woman saves him by hitting the librarian with a sharp hammer.
He seems dead and the abusive boyfriend takes off without any gratitude or help to the woman, who is left to ponder with what she has done.
One night she is mysteriously drawn to the greenhouse. She sees something and then we are given visual shots of the plants, and we hear the voices of the librarian and the woman. They argue and fight.
At this point, we have absolutely no idea what has happened. Did they really become plants, or are they imbedded into the consciousness of the plants? Is it a preternatural dream of the librarian? Or of the woman? Perhaps.
The librarian says that he will bring another woman to the garden. The woman who works at the store, who seemed to have an odd fascination with him at the beginning.
She gets into her automobile and starts driving as if she is in a trance.
The plant woman then controls an old gardener, who has shears in his hand, heading to the plant who is the librarian.
The librarian gets frightened and tells her that she will be all alone if he is killed. The old gardener cuts the plant and blood pours from the leaves. Is the librarian plant truly dead? It is not evident.
The woman who works at the store is in her car, and suddenly the windshield is dripping with white ooze, which reminded me of plant 'blood', and her car falls over a bridge and explodes.
The abusive boyfriend is also put into a trance, and he is forebodingly called to the greenhouse, leaving a woman he picked up, on the empty and dark street. He rides off on his motorcycle.
A weird plant face is materializing in the greenhouse. To me, it could have been either female or male. The abusive boyfriend then climbs a church tower, and the weird plant face stares at him and his body falls to the ground below. And that is the ending.
Everyone is dead.
One wonders if the weird plant face was the manifestation of the librarian, or the woman who killed him. We don't know.
Was there some type of morality being told? That obsession causes death for all those involved? I think the film could make that point. Since it did not give any answers, I was left thinking about the meaning for a while.
The film is definitely enigmatic, and I particularly enjoyed that it did not provide any concrete answers.
The beginning reminded me of the 1948 Ernesto Sábato, novel, El túnel. That was made into two movies, El túnel (1952) and The Tunnel (1988). The theme of jealousy and obsession is part of that novel.
The later plant scenes reminded me of The Kirlian Witness (1979). That movie was also very interesting, as it was about a houseplant which has witnessed a murder. The question was whether the houseplant could truly communicate and identify the killer.
I found this movie unusual and unique. The director was very capable and even the actors were good. It was short at one hour and sixteen minutes, which gives me the idea that perhaps it was cut up and re-edited. The later part seems more like a horror movie, and the beginning is more like a dark drama. Some movie posters also try to sell it off as a 'unknown killer' film. So does my old VHS video box.
The audio is not very good, so it is difficult to hear what is being said at times. It is also in Castilian Spanish from the heart of Spain, and introductory Spanish students may have trouble with the accents.
But in all, this extremely hard to find and rare film, was a pleasant discovery for me.
In Castilian Spanish with no subtitles.
*Plot and ending analyzed*
El invernadero
The Greenhouse
This is quite an interesting movie, it is very unique and ambiguous. I really enjoyed the peculiarities that it evoked.
A lonely man who is a librarian, happens to run into a woman at a corner store that he frequents. He later attempts to stop her abusive boyfriend from beating her. He doesn't do much, since he is both inept and weak.
He invites the woman back to his place and he takes care of her bruises and cuts. He even allows her to stay there. They find out that they are neighbors.
The man secretly puts a microphone in the bathroom to listen to the woman when she is showering. You can tell that he has already developed a fixation upon her.
After she does not show up for a dinner engagement, he finds her at a theater rehearsal. She is an actress. He sends her flowers anonymously. But she certainly realizes it was him.
She starts posing at the window and even starts making love to the abusive boyfriend in plain sight. The man enthusiastically takes photographs, and she finds out one day when she sneaks into his darkroom. But she is not bothered by it, actually she is excited, and then she makes a move on the man.
From then on, he can't stop thinking about her.
She disappears one day, and the man gets a phone call from someone telling him to meet at the greenhouse.
He hears the woman's voice behind the numerous plants. She even has a knife in her hand. He gets frightened with the weird things she is saying. To the audience, it seems like she has disappeared into the conglomeration of plant life. That she has become a plant.
It turns out that she is very much alive though, and she was merely scheming with the abusive boyfriend to play a cruel joke on the man.
The man finds it offensive as she tells him that she never loved him. He then attempts to kill the abusive boyfriend. The woman saves him by hitting the librarian with a sharp hammer.
He seems dead and the abusive boyfriend takes off without any gratitude or help to the woman, who is left to ponder with what she has done.
One night she is mysteriously drawn to the greenhouse. She sees something and then we are given visual shots of the plants, and we hear the voices of the librarian and the woman. They argue and fight.
At this point, we have absolutely no idea what has happened. Did they really become plants, or are they imbedded into the consciousness of the plants? Is it a preternatural dream of the librarian? Or of the woman? Perhaps.
The librarian says that he will bring another woman to the garden. The woman who works at the store, who seemed to have an odd fascination with him at the beginning.
She gets into her automobile and starts driving as if she is in a trance.
The plant woman then controls an old gardener, who has shears in his hand, heading to the plant who is the librarian.
The librarian gets frightened and tells her that she will be all alone if he is killed. The old gardener cuts the plant and blood pours from the leaves. Is the librarian plant truly dead? It is not evident.
The woman who works at the store is in her car, and suddenly the windshield is dripping with white ooze, which reminded me of plant 'blood', and her car falls over a bridge and explodes.
The abusive boyfriend is also put into a trance, and he is forebodingly called to the greenhouse, leaving a woman he picked up, on the empty and dark street. He rides off on his motorcycle.
A weird plant face is materializing in the greenhouse. To me, it could have been either female or male. The abusive boyfriend then climbs a church tower, and the weird plant face stares at him and his body falls to the ground below. And that is the ending.
Everyone is dead.
One wonders if the weird plant face was the manifestation of the librarian, or the woman who killed him. We don't know.
Was there some type of morality being told? That obsession causes death for all those involved? I think the film could make that point. Since it did not give any answers, I was left thinking about the meaning for a while.
The film is definitely enigmatic, and I particularly enjoyed that it did not provide any concrete answers.
The beginning reminded me of the 1948 Ernesto Sábato, novel, El túnel. That was made into two movies, El túnel (1952) and The Tunnel (1988). The theme of jealousy and obsession is part of that novel.
The later plant scenes reminded me of The Kirlian Witness (1979). That movie was also very interesting, as it was about a houseplant which has witnessed a murder. The question was whether the houseplant could truly communicate and identify the killer.
I found this movie unusual and unique. The director was very capable and even the actors were good. It was short at one hour and sixteen minutes, which gives me the idea that perhaps it was cut up and re-edited. The later part seems more like a horror movie, and the beginning is more like a dark drama. Some movie posters also try to sell it off as a 'unknown killer' film. So does my old VHS video box.
The audio is not very good, so it is difficult to hear what is being said at times. It is also in Castilian Spanish from the heart of Spain, and introductory Spanish students may have trouble with the accents.
But in all, this extremely hard to find and rare film, was a pleasant discovery for me.
In Castilian Spanish with no subtitles.