FATA/MORGANA (1965)
aka Left-Handed Fate
Article 2865 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-12-2009
Posting Date: 6-17-2009
Directed by Vicente Aranda
Featuring Teresa Gimpera, Marianne Benet, Marcos Marti
Country: Spain

In a city that is nearly empty (the residents having departed due to “collective fear”), a model discovers that she is to be the victim of a murder before the day is through. A detective who knows about the upcoming murder seeks to prevent it.

I’d like to describe this one as a bizarre thriller, but I can’t; it’s too arty to really work up much in the way of thrills, though I have no problems with the word “bizarre” here. I’ve only seen one other movie by this director (THE BLOOD-SPATTERED BRIDE), and, if anything, it makes me understand why some of the scenes in that movie are pretty strange as well. Still, with art movies, they either work for you or they don’t, and, though I don’t agree with the whole theme of “people who are born to be murdered” that is central to the story here, it more or less worked enough that I was not bored. Some bizarre scenes stand out; a woman kills two men with a fish, a series of men try to pick up the model as she walks down the street, a group of men steal the model’s image from a billboard, and a man completely disguises his face with bandages a la the invisible man. It’s odd, but it may benefit from a second watching.