For me there can be two reasons not to watch the same movie twice: Either I hated the movie or although the storytelling is captivating, it is far too depressing to revisit. For Dispara, it is the latter. It’s a Spanish movie from 1993, starring Antonio Banderas and Francesca Neri. The story is drama and not really action – so don’t let the poster and the title fool you. Some of the actions of the lead characters border on being unbelievably foolish and you can’t help feeling frustrated. But then again, the situations they are both in are disturbing and well, you can understand to why they panic.
Ana (Francesca Neri) works at a circus. She is a good horse-rider and a master at shooting. She performs impressive shows using both her talents. One night journalist Marcos (Antonio Banderas) cathces her show as an assignment for his newspaper and he really is captivated by Ana’s both beauty and on-stage performance. He tries and finally manages to get an interview from her. She has had an interesting life and she is genuinely nice. After spending little with each other, they fall in love. Marcos leaves town for a job and has every intention of seeing her again.
But then something horrific happens. Three mechanics working on a circus vehicle set their eyes on Ana and one night they rape her. They are violent and Ana is more than shaken by what she goes through. The next morning, she takes their address, her bullets and rifle and sets out to kill them. This time the men do not stand a chance. She shoots and kills all three of them. Although there is one eye-witness, she could probably have gotten away with it but one unfortunate event follow another: she is badly injured and has internal bleeding from the previous night’s rape, Marcos has come to her place to find out something has gone terribly wrong- when he gets a hysteric message from her and learns about the deaths of the three man, he intuitively thinks it’s her and makes some bad judgment calls- and well….the movie gets more and more depressing.
The last time I got this depressed by a movie happened during Requiem for a Dream. While this movie does have its faults (it doesn’t have the perfect visual quality but maybe it was just my DVD) but I couldn’t help but thinking how the director just could have shot some scenes better, especially the beginning.
The characters are both easy to empathize with, although but make mistakes with horrible results. You might also think the strange combination of romance, drama and vengeance do not work. It all depends on your expectations. As long as you are not looking for a masterpiece but a heartfelt yet disturbing drama, you will not be disappointed. Plus the performances are solid.
P.S. This is the only video I could find on the movie:
http://845b2903.ugalleries.net