Truly Dreadful Film

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Film maker José Sirgado (Poncela) gets to know amateur film director and freak Pedro though an acquaintance of both. Pedro's bizarre movies and José's personal problems and drug addictions act as the glue that forges a master-pupil relationship, especially when José makes a technical improvement to Pedro's camera that allows interval shooting. All this with some undefined gay twist to their relationship.After the relationship is put to sleep and José is back to his gloomy apartment in Madrid and his drug-driven love relationship with Cecilia Roth, he is surprised to receive a package from Pedro one day. And inside the package, a film and a cassette tape seem to indicate that a vampire lives inside Pedro's Super-8 camera, a vampire that absorbs people and makes them disappear when they are filmed.Could it be true? Or is it just a result of too much drug intake? The story becomes then a vehicle for theorizing on the creative process in arts, the relationship between the artist and his product, and finally the fascination with cinema in our lives ("Arrebato" can be translated as "raptum" and refers to the impact of certain artistic clichés -- King Solomon's mines for Sirgado, Betty Boop for his girlfriend-- in our feelings)As a very thin backdrop to the story, Zulueta portraits an sfumatto of the Spain of the late 70's: a society that used drugs liberally, craved for freedom, and made the way of sexual liberation while challenging the statu quo of decades of dictatorships.

Get hold of it if you can. Best vampires movie ever without even showing any teeth...If you thing you are committed to your work, see the protagonist of this movie.The director had to adapt to stern constrains in number of characters and locales and still he came up with a modern classic, catching the spirit of the "movida madrileña" ( a musical an cultural boom in Madrid eighties) and providing a metaphor for the trail of wasted talent this outburst leave, because of drugs, diversion and basic human frailty. In my personal top 5 Spanish movies of all time.

Obviously, you will receive a surprise from this enrapturing film due to strange denounement and secondary characters. Slowly in the begining, it justifies that scenes during the film while you get catch for the story unconciously. Special mention to the work of Will More, a curious actor who didn´t work in cinema never more, only little appearances on TV series. Correct performance of Eusebio Poncela but he is better actor now, the same to a young and inexpert Cecilia Roth. Definitely you have to see this movie and think about it during hours before you beat the insomnia that the film could produce. Very disturbing.

Arrebato by Ivan Zulueta is a wonderful, strange movie. The desire and the magic of cinema full the screen. This extremely beautiful film describes clearly the darkness state of things, the joy and pain of living, taking drugs, being and loving the cinema. A little big jewel to feel.