REVIEW: VENTAJAS DE VIAJAR EN TREN AKA ADVANTAGES OF TRAVELLING BY TRAIN
By Elena Anele (*)
VENTAJAS DE VIAJAR EN TREN AKA ADVANTAGES OF TRAVELLING BY TRAIN is a movie directed by Aritz Moreno (COTTON CANDY, CÓLERA), who comes from the short film market being this his fist feature. This is based on the novel by the great Antonio Orejudo and it was adapted by Javier Gullón (LA CUEVA).
The movie shows three different chapters from the book, which actually contains more stories. In the first one Helga Pato, a woman coming back from an asylum where her husband is kept, meets a psychiatrist on the train. He is an untruthful man who starts telling a weird story, then other stories are included in a matryoshka structure.
As the die-hard fan of Antonio Orejudo I am, I have to confess that I missed all the baroque infected atmosphere that is portrayed in his book, the disgusting, insane macabre and puking tale and details given in this. In the movie, they make up a colorful treated to the max cinematography that is not inspired by the words in the written narrative. It is closer to Jeunet’s cheesy art than to the Cervantine traced world Orejudo perfectly depicted.
Not even the main stars in the film as Luis Tosar, Pilar Castro, Quim Gutierrez or Ernesto Alterio saved it from my disliking.
It was premiered at Sitges Festival on October 5 and at theaters in 2019 theaters in Spain. It has been released in different countries around Europe and I think more will be added. It is now available on DVD and BR thanks to Divisa distribution company, but it seems not to be English friendly and no to include any extra features.
__________________________________________________________
Elena Anele is the woman in charge of SPANISHFEAR.COM, Horror Rises from Spain and Un Fan de Paul Naschy . A literature and cinema researcher, finishing her postgraduate studies with a thesis about the mystic filmmaker José Val del Omar. She has published in different media and books as Fangoria or Hidden Horror. She has also been in charge of several translations including Javier Trujillo’s complete works, La Mano Film Fest, The Man who Saw Frankenstein Cry and many more.
