The Art of Dying (2000)

Pretty Good

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

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

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

People will fatally evoke "los ostros" and "the sixth sense".Those remarkable works did not invent the "trick" though.It was already used in "carnival of souls "(1962).And anyway "arte de morir" owes more to the largely underrated "Jacob's ladder" and to the rather original adolescent movie " Campfire tales" ."El arte de morir" suffers from a screenplay which lacks focus and intensity and the story does not take off during the first thirty minutes.There are good ideas which suggest that the movie could have been much better than what we see on the screen.I particularly dig the lines "it takes nine months to be born,why would it take so little time to die?""There'll come a time when all of us must leave here(...) There' ll come a time when all our hopes are fading When things that seem so very plain Become an awful pain." (George Harrison,"Art of dying","All things must pass " album)

Nice Spanish Thriller(supernatural)/Drama that's definitely worth watching,nice rental!!It's your typical "Kill them one by one" movie (like Scream) where a bunch of young adults did something wrong in the past and have to pay for that now...This is NOT a horror/Comedy,it breaths a dark,chilling atmosphere... It's very well directed,kind of strange and has good music(New Wave/Gothic).Ideal to watch once on tv or for an overnight rental.GO SEE THIS,YOU'LL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!!See ya!

as I saw this flick in the middle of the night, that might have made it even more breathtaking, for that is what this is, breathtaking. The idea is brilliant and quite original, the idea that one can die at different levels before the final death, and that death, however terrifying, is the final liberation. But it is the idea I loved, not the film itself. Something is lost, the staging is simple and the murders are textbook. It in the end is nothing more then a successful slasher film. I wish someone would do a remake which was actually true to the idea. The only character which really works here is Ivan, a forlorn and neglected genius, slightly schizophrenic and well, charismatic. Unlike the others, who are simply uninteresting.

I have to admit that when I decided to see this movie I was completely sure it was going to be another "Scream" clone. Despite that, since it was the first Spanish horror movie that belonged to this new "horror-movie-for-teenagers" genre, I though it might be interesting to watch.How little could I imagine that it was going to be much more intelligent and scary than any "I know what you did last summer" type of movie(It also has some flaws,though, but I'll take about them at the end). The plot seems rather similar to that of the movie I've just mentioned, but only at the beginning, because afterwards it has amazing plot twists that don't just focus on the identity of the killer. (Even though the final plot twist isn't good enough)The way it's directed helps the movie be different too, making the movie kind of "cold" and distant. To be honest, I think the director has got inspired by films such as Crash and Gattaca to set this kind of mood.The performances are good, specially the main two characters, even though sometimes they behave strangely. (They seem to be a bit unfocused sometimes, but maybe that's the way their characters are supposed to be)As for the bad things, the movie gets a bit boring towards the end, not because of what happens, but because of the performances and the direction (I know, I'm contradicting myself a little bit here, since I've said all of this was good, but maybe the director should have made things go faster at the end and make the character's personalities not so monotonous.) Then, when you thing it's over, there are two more plot twists that instead of getting better and better get worse and worse, and make the ending less interesting.Overall, "El arte the morir" is a GOOD movie BRILLIANTLY directed and with fairly good CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. And it's much more intelligent than Scream2 and "I know what you did last summer" and its sequel. I give it a 7.5 out of 10.