Name: Film Review: Nobody Knows Anybody (Nadie conoce a nadie, 1999)
Item: Nobody Knows Anybody
Rating: 70
Author: @drax

(source: tmdb.org)

In late 1990s Alejandro Amenabar became one of the most celebrated authors of Spanish cinema due to his highly regarded thrillers Thesis and Open Your Eyes. Much of the success of those two films should be credited to Amenabar’s friend, collaborator and screenwriter Mateo Gill who in 1999 had his own directorial debut with thriller Nobody Knows Anybody.

The film is based on the novel by Juan Bonilla. Protagonist, played by Eduardo Noriega, is Simon Cardenas, young aspiring writer who is, due to lack of inspiration, forced to make ends meet creating crossword puzzles for Seville newspaper. His life is turned upside down when he receives message demanding that he puts specific word in one of puzzles during the Holly Week celebrations. Simon is intrigued and starts to investigate just as the city gets rocked by series by bizarre murders and terrorist acts involving churches, organisations and individuals involved in Holly Week processions. Responsibility was claimed by satanist army but Simon soon discovers that it is all part of an elaborate and twisted game and that he is also one of its unwilling participants.

Unlike Amenabar’s films, Nobody Knows Anybody didn’t receive much of the praise from the critics. Reason for that can be found in perception of this film as derivative work that tries to repeat Amenabar’s formula, further strengthened by casting of Eduardo Noriega (who starred in previous two films), Gil writing the screenplay and Amenabar composing music. Taken by its own, Nobody Knows Anybody is quite decent thriller, although its use of millennarianist motives isn’t effective today as it was in 1999. Gil directs film with great confidence, putting locations of Sevllle to good use and creating sharp between old narrow streets of the city and medieval tradition and the modern “hip” architecture embodied by Expo ‘92. The atmosphere created in that way helps viewers ignore slight untidiness of the plot. Cast is very good, especially Jordi Molla in the role of Simon’s friend and flatmate “Toad”. Many critics were prone to disregard the film because of too much similarities with Fincher’s The Game, although Gill’s film owes much more to the literary works of Jorge Luis Borges. Despite its flaws, Nobody Knows Anybody deserves much more praise than its relative obscure reputation might suggest.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)