David O'ConnellFermat's Room
June 17th 2009 03:47
A quartet of mathematicians is lured to a remote old building in the Spanish countryside by a tantalising invitation to share in an evening of challenging puzzles. Soon however, they’re engaged in a struggle to extricate themselves from a deadly game, locked in a room that slowly begins to shrink in direct proportion to their erroneous attempts at solving the puzzles.
Fermat’s Room (2007), an original screenplay from co-directors Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena, is a locked-room mystery with a perplexing and sinister twist. The premise has the potential to materialise into a cross between Saw and Vincenzo Natali’s excellent Cube (1997); it ultimately avoids straying down those paths, uninterested in gory demises, but for a drama limited by its interior setting, it generates a surprising level of suspense, with a number of requisite twists to savour along the way.
The characters, supposedly the only ones to successfully complete a logic problem received by mail, are diverse enough to provide the film with a solid base: the prodigious stud Galois (Alejo Sauras), the pretty but clinical Oliva (Elena Ballesteros), middle-aged alcoholic and failed inventor, Pascal (Santi Millan), and disillusioned veteran Hilbert (Lluis Homar); the fifth member, arriving last, is the evening's assumed orchestrator: Fermat (Federico Luppi).
It’s only when Fermat is called away – the only participant directed to bring a mobile phone with him in his invitation – that the real intrigue begins as the first of the puzzles is issued via a handheld PDF unit. They soon uncover documentation in the room verifying the purchase of hydraulic presses which are obviously situated behind each wall for the purpose of providing some serious squeeze on these 'contestants'!
Naturally, tempers are unleashed and nerves frayed as their predicament becomes life-threatening and the puzzles increase in difficulty; clearly this is no longer just part of the evening’s entertainment. Between them they possess the intellectual capacity to solve these problems, but will they run out of time? And does their unseen antagonist even care if they do with his end game swiftly approaching?
To spice things up, mysterious connections - established through deduction and heated debate about possible motivations for this set-up - are made, but they seem useless in the face of their extreme time limitation. Clues are discovered, some inherent in the pseudonyms they’ve each been assigned, others scattered about the room, adding further to the sense of impending doom as the room shrinks down to almost nothing and imagining a means of escape seems more futile than ever.
A skillfully wrought drama with a few neat twists tossed in, Fermat's Room is a cerebrally challenging diversion with a slightly anti-climatic resolution. There’s no bloodletting for those seeking ghoulish entertainment; the drama is heavily weighted towards solving its central mystery regarding the identity and motivation of the puppet master.
With a frantic finale bearing down, vivid colours running riot in a saturation of rising tensions, evaporating space, and sweat pouring off wrinkled foreheads, the co-directors can be said to have succeeded in their basic quest at least - to keep me glued to my seat, second-guessing.
Fermat’s Room (2007), an original screenplay from co-directors Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena, is a locked-room mystery with a perplexing and sinister twist. The premise has the potential to materialise into a cross between Saw and Vincenzo Natali’s excellent Cube (1997); it ultimately avoids straying down those paths, uninterested in gory demises, but for a drama limited by its interior setting, it generates a surprising level of suspense, with a number of requisite twists to savour along the way.
The characters, supposedly the only ones to successfully complete a logic problem received by mail, are diverse enough to provide the film with a solid base: the prodigious stud Galois (Alejo Sauras), the pretty but clinical Oliva (Elena Ballesteros), middle-aged alcoholic and failed inventor, Pascal (Santi Millan), and disillusioned veteran Hilbert (Lluis Homar); the fifth member, arriving last, is the evening's assumed orchestrator: Fermat (Federico Luppi).
It’s only when Fermat is called away – the only participant directed to bring a mobile phone with him in his invitation – that the real intrigue begins as the first of the puzzles is issued via a handheld PDF unit. They soon uncover documentation in the room verifying the purchase of hydraulic presses which are obviously situated behind each wall for the purpose of providing some serious squeeze on these 'contestants'!
Restricted personal space for Pascal (Santi Millan), Oliva (Elena Ballesteros), Galois (Alejo Sauras) and Hilbert (Lluis Homar)
Naturally, tempers are unleashed and nerves frayed as their predicament becomes life-threatening and the puzzles increase in difficulty; clearly this is no longer just part of the evening’s entertainment. Between them they possess the intellectual capacity to solve these problems, but will they run out of time? And does their unseen antagonist even care if they do with his end game swiftly approaching?
To spice things up, mysterious connections - established through deduction and heated debate about possible motivations for this set-up - are made, but they seem useless in the face of their extreme time limitation. Clues are discovered, some inherent in the pseudonyms they’ve each been assigned, others scattered about the room, adding further to the sense of impending doom as the room shrinks down to almost nothing and imagining a means of escape seems more futile than ever.
A skillfully wrought drama with a few neat twists tossed in, Fermat's Room is a cerebrally challenging diversion with a slightly anti-climatic resolution. There’s no bloodletting for those seeking ghoulish entertainment; the drama is heavily weighted towards solving its central mystery regarding the identity and motivation of the puppet master.
With a frantic finale bearing down, vivid colours running riot in a saturation of rising tensions, evaporating space, and sweat pouring off wrinkled foreheads, the co-directors can be said to have succeeded in their basic quest at least - to keep me glued to my seat, second-guessing.
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