As a young girl Ana was a rebellious child. She was also tormented by images of death and a shadowy, ominous figure in black. Now an adult, she is once again tormented by shadowy, other-worldly forms.An extraordinary feat. In making this movie the director(s) managed to turn 15 minutes of meaningless and random plot into a 90-minute movie. Done by doing almost everything in slow motion and repeating one action over and over, often without even changing the camera angle. Incredibly pretentious and containing no substance whatsoever this movie is truly devoid of any positive qualities. Avoid at all costs and save yourself some time.

Amer may not have a high re-watch value for me, but it certainly was a unique experience. I may have to let it sink in a bit as I'm still a bit confused. Never have I seen a movie where literally everything is sexualized. From crawling spiders to a simple walk to the hairdresser with your mother. Not by methods like nudity but solely by its cinematography. Besides the cinematography, the scenery and actresses are gorgeous if I may say so. The three chapters, each representing a stage of the main character's life worked quite well. The plot's simplicity works in cases like Amer. The It's definitely abstract and there's practically no dialogue. Movies like Amer could go both ways if you're new. I'm happy to say to I quite liked it.

Fluctuating between abstract eroticism and surreal, paranoid mysticism, this film certainly is weird. Surprisingly enough though, it becomes less vague while pertaining the surreal style. As the film progresses, it seems so that the entire bizarre nature of the film is the reality of Ana, who's not just a weird little girl, but actually turns out to be a disturbed mentally ill person, like a autistic paranoid schizophrenic.She is extremely sensory/perceptive and also sensual in a more erotic and carnal way, as is shown beautifully using closeups of lips, eyes, legs, etcetera. Not to forget the extreme intensity of light now and then, and to accentuate the sensory aspect also the use of primary colors, filing an entire shot. The visual style is very creative, and feels really authentic to me. It's minimal and focusing: everything serves to demonstrate the reality of Ana.All the mystic amulet stuff in the beginning, which invites you to try to make sense of it all, turns out to be the little girl's condition using her imagination to make up this reality. There's no mysterious amulet, neither is her grandma trying to hurt her. It's all in her mind, she's very paranoid and frightened. Possibly the shocking discovery of her parents making love while she ran in for help contributed to her weird seductive attitude and carnal desires at adolescent age. She is clearly sick and feels abstract, sexual attraction to the soccer playing youngster, but also with the older motorcyclists.Then she's slightly older, returning to her parental home. She takes a bath, and almost gets drowned by a pair of gloved hands that seem to be the same as those of her grandmother in the beginning. Later when she's trying to sleep, the taxi driver pays her a visit. His intentions are never exactly clear, but he's visiting her at night with a knife, so he's certainly up to no good. However, there seems to be a third person at work, once again the person with the gloved hands. It is in these scenes that I learned that it's actually Ana herself. This becomes even more obvious when she cuts up the taxi driver and takes of the gloves.Ultimately this virtual person chases her again and seems to kill her, which means of course she's committed suicide. One question remains for me though: why does she open her eyes at the end of the film? Personally, I think it's a bad choice that wants to suggests it's unclear whether the final scene is an actual autopsy of her apparent suicide, or another of Ana's delusions. I might be wrong though. It's unclear and I think she should have had her eyes closed ;-).

AMER is all style with absolutely no substance. It's a collection of over-directed scenes stitched together with overdone editing all about nothing. Aside from the overdone beginning, which has very little to do with the rest of the film, in tone or anything else, the rest is just 60 minutes of shots pouty lips, of long hair ending up everywhere or of the wind blowing in between a young girl's legs or a middle aged woman's legs, sending her in constant state of near orgasmic frenzy. In this film, the wind is truly powerful! Every little mundane detail is a sexual catalyst and this is amped to the nth degree, in case we couldn't figure it out after the endless number of close-ups of lips and flesh and sounds of heavy breathing.For instance, when the middle-aged woman walks through the garden surrounding the mansion, the trees, plants and shrubberies she comes across seem to want to ravish her. This is me rolling on the floor with laughter.This film has two directors, one of them being a woman but even so the so-called 'male gaze' has never been more omnipresent. I've never seen so many panties/crotch shots outside of a Spice Girls music video. Its attempt to ape the Giallo style of filmmaking (which includes a cheesy retro poster) falls resolutely flat. Giallo films are first and foremost passionate and this film is as passionate as a dead fish washed up on a deserted beach.A very shallow cinematic experience.