Voices en Español

The mother of an ill child moves into a huge, spooky house in the Spanish countryside. While her son sees imaginary “friends,” the attractive blonde is tormented by strange sounds and incidents that happen in the house with a dark history.

A remake of the movie The Others by Alejandro Amenábar? Not exactly, although one could be forgiven for thinking it was. In fact, it is the plot of El Orfanato, a rather dull and deriative movie by Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona. I was curious to see the movie because it is being marketed as a scary movie and it has already been selected to be Spain’s entry for Best Foreign Language film at next year’s Oscars.

Well, if this is the best film made in Spain this year, 2007 hasn’t been a good year for Spanish cinema. Although Spain has had its share of great film directors, contemporary movies, outside of those made by Amenábar and Pedro Almodóvar, don’t have much of a following.

In an attempt to level the playing field, the Spanish government earlier this year passed a law requiring Spanish movie theaters to play a certain percentage of Spanish movies. For every three foreign movies, there has to be at least one Spanish movie shown, or something like that. By foreign, the Spanish mean American. Well, I wish the Spanish luck with their initiative because it turns out that the type of movies that most Spaniards like, according to Spanish surveys, is “Made in Hollywood.”

Memo to J.A. Bayona: Mr. Amenábar called. He wants his movie back.