Part of The Oregonian's team coverage of Week 3 of the Portland International Film Festival:
"Extraterrestrial"
In his second feature, writer/director Nacho Vigalondo ("Timecrimes") once again gets clever with a no-budget sci-fi conceit. The morning after a one-night stand, it's the usual brand of awkward for the participants (Julián Villagrán, Michelle Jenner). But before the man can embark on a walk of shame right out of the woman's life, they learn that dozens of four-mile-wide spaceships are hovering silently over Spain.
The ensuing comedy comes from the duo being more concerned with relationship issues than a likely alien invasion -- even lying about the possibility of alien infiltrators masking as humans to cover up their infidelities when stalkers and semi-ex-boyfriends start showing up at the woman's apartment.
Vigalondo makes the most of a handful of locations while bouncing romantic farce off a (largely unseen) world-changing event. I loved how Vigalondo applied all of the space-invader genre's tricks and tropes to trivial events -- the offscreen suspense is generated by the sound of a woman making coffee, for example, and the apartment siege comes from a jilted wannabe suitor lobbing tennis balls through a window.
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B; Spain; 90 minutes. PIFF showtimes:
- Friday 2/24 at 8:45 p.m., Whitsell
- Saturday 2/25 at 6 p.m., Whitsell
Portland International Film Festival reviews: Week 3 (The Oregonian, Feb. 24, 2012)
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