Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
A Body in the Forest (1996)
Director: Joaquín Jordá
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Catalonia: four men on a boar hunt discover the remains of a girl, Montse. The corpse is cut up and daubed 'whore' in blood. The Civil Guard send in an outside investigator, Lt Cifuentes (Rossy de Palma). Ignoring the local policeman, who focuses on the centuries of ill fate that have befallen the girl's family, Cifuentes interviews Montse's last few acquaintances, treating them with mounting contempt as she reconstructs events. Occasionally we hear the girl's voice, winding its way through the film's staggered flashback structure. Writer/director Jordá has an elliptical way with film grammar, and plays similar insouciant games with the audience's identification. Rather than an unreliable narrator, it's the protagonist who proves, well, ethically double-jointed. The film works as an enjoyably over-heated investigative thriller, but also as a bleak indictment of a community where superstition and bigotry conceal a contemporary culture of callous opportunism.Author: NB
Cast & crew
Director: Joaquín Jordá
Producer: José Antonio Pérez Giner, Josep Maria Forn
Cast: Rossy de Palma, Núria Prims, Ricardo Borràs, Pep Molina, Joan Masdeu, Julieta Serrano full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 91 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'
Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'
Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'
We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations












What do you think?
Post your review now