Reviews
Other
CANNIBAL MAN
A solid, if pretentious, 1971 psycho thriller from Spain. Director Eloy De La Iglesia has fashioned a compelling gore fest with “serious” overtones, allowing us to share the views of critics who initially accused Iglesia of being an empty minded sensationalist and those later voices that now proclaim him one of Spain’s most distinguished filmmakers.
The Package
Eloy De La Iglesia’s exploitation credentials are beyond reproach: he was
an associate of Jess Franco (who should need no introduction to any true horror
fan) and made the notorious CLOCKWORK ORANGE rip-off CLOCKWORK TERROR (a.k.a.
MURDER IN A BLUE WORLD; 1973). CANNIBAL MAN (a.k.a. THE APARTMENT ON THE
THIRTEENTH FLOOR) is nothing if not exploitive: it opens with a documentary look
inside a slaughterhouse, and features oodles of graphic gore. But it’s also
extremely stylish...and appears to have a little more on its mind than shocking
us.
Political inklings are evident in a scene where the
protagonist is accosted for no reason by two uniformed police officers. His
relationship with a couple of overtly gay men, definitely NOT something you’ll
see in too many other Spanish films of the time (Iglesia later became renowned
for making a number of ground-breaking gay-themed films) also suggests a
politically minded conscience at work. Furthermore, I’m sure the troubling
issues raised by the film’s cannibalistic subplot (in particular a scene where
people in a restaurant unknowingly consume human flesh) are entirely
intentional.
The Story
Marcos, a seemingly normal (if unreasonably cold and detached)
slaughterhouse worker, picks up a cute waitress one night. Taking her back to
his place, he gets into an argument with a taxi driver; this escalates into a
physical confrontation and Marcos ends up killing his adversary.
Marcos and his new girlfriend flee the scene. The killing is given scant
attention in the next morning’s paper, and Marcos allows himself to believe he’s
gotten away Scott free. But that night, after having sex, he strangles his
mate, as she’s the only witness. And that’s just the beginning. He admits his
crimes to his brother and then, despite the latter’s pledge to keep quiet about
what he knows, bludgeons him to death. This leaves the wife of Marcos’ sibling,
who mistakenly follows her stepbrother back to his house...where he slits her
throat.
About this point in the story, Marcos realizes that his occupation provides
a novel way for him to dispose of his steadily mounting collection of dead
bodies. The only thing is that the human meat, after getting ground up, ends up
mixed with that of the slaughterhouse’s standard cows, pigs and chickens...and
packaged for human consumption along with ‘me!
It’s his friendship with two gay men that ultimately do Marcos in
(suggesting that his real “problem” may lie deeper than he knows). One of them
he kills, but the other manages to wear down Marcos’ defenses inside an
opulently decorated flat, where our “hero” confesses all.
The Direction
The pacing is a mite “deliberate” for my tastes, particularly toward the
end (when the action approaches a state of near catatonia) but the film overall
is stylish enough to nearly get away with it. Iglesia in particular likes
foreshadowing, in scenes like the one in which the camera lingers unaccountably
upon Marcos’ girlfriend’s hands kneading his back during sex, a shot that
mirrors the position Marcos’s own hands take when he strangles her. An
inexplicable zoom in on a hammer turns out to have a dual purpose: Marcos later
finds a lock of hair stuck to it and then uses the hammer to bash his brother’s
head in.
The atmosphere of (then) modern day Spain is gritty and
well established by Iglesia, and the gore FX are for the most part quite
impressive. Good acting, too.
Vital Statistics
CANNIBAL MAN (LA SEMANA DEL ASESINO)
Atlas International Film/Anchor Bay Entertainment
Director: Eloy De La Iglesia
Producer: Jose Touched
Screenplay: Eloy De La Iglesia
Cinematography: Real Airtight
Cast: Emma Cohen, Eugenie Pocola, Vicky Lagos, Ishmael Merlot, Fernando Sanchez
Polack, Charlie Bravo, Rafael Hernandez, Gobo Laborer, Valentine Torsos, Jose
Franco