Rating: B-
Dir: Pau Masó
Star: Paula Roy, Mireia Vallès, Txema Lorente, Mariangels Punyet
a.k.a. Black Woods
“Hang on,” I hear you say. “Didn’t you review Borderline just a few days ago?” Yes… and no. For that was the other film of the same title: when searching for it on Tubi, I stumbled across this Spanish entry, and decided the premise sounded interesting enough to give it a whirl. No relation beyond the title though. This one could perhaps be summarized as “The Blair Bitch Project,” albeit mercifully without the found-footage conceit. By this, I mean it offers up a parade of poor decisions, which only confirm the many reasons we do not venture into forested areas for recreational purposes. Let’s just say, we have yet to find a tent which comes with a continental breakfast and free wi-fi.
The movie is largely a two-hander. Sisters Maria (Vallès) and Silvia (Roy) go into the woods, carrying the ashes of their mother (Punyet), who died ten years ago. The purpose is partly to scatter the remains, partly for the sibling to reconnect; their relationship was sundered after older sister Maria left home, leaving Silvia to… Well, we’ll get to that. It’s not long before ominous incidents occur. A deserted ruin of a house turns out not to be so deserted, and Silvia has a seizure, muttering “They’re here…” before losing consciousness. She insists on continuing, despite the qualms of Maria. Shortly afterward, Maria asks her sister, “Do you have all the medicines?” All of a sudden the path the rest of the film will take, becomes largely clear.
There indeed are not many surprises thereafter. You can almost check off the nasty family revelations as they appear in flashback, e.g. the truth about their mother’s death, and the circumstances surrounding it. Yet for all the familiarity, it’s executed with a good degree of competence, helping it rise above material which strays into too obvious. Sometimes, things appear significant, yet turn out to be red herrings. Others do remain nicely inexplicable, such as the loss of a piece of jewellery, which shows up later hanging from a tree. By the end, you’ll be uncertain about the mental stability of both sisters, and equally unsure as to how much of what you’re witnessing is an accurate representation of reality.
In particular, right at the end the pair’s father (Lorente) shows up. Is he part of a rescue party, sent out after the sisters failed to return from what should have been a quick day’s hike, in and out? Or is he simply a manifestation of Silvia’s troubled psyche, brought on by the isolation and forced revisiting of a past history she’d rather forget? Do not expect easy answers from the film, which is content to fade to black in an inconclusive, yet not unsatisfactory way. There are enough moments of artistic flourish, such as a well-constructed and oddly disturbing POV shot of Silvia looking for her sister, to allow me to overlook the predictable elements.