Fausto 5.0

(2001) ***1/2

Dr. Fausto works with terminal patients. He is going to a medical convention in the city. When he arrives he runs into a man named Santos Vella who claims that Fausto saved his life some years back. Fausto doesn't seem to recall the man.

Santos says that Fausto removed his stomach. He even shows him the scar. He wants to give Fausto a ride to the hotel but he refuses and insists on taking a cab. Santos gives him his card telling him to call if he needs anything. On the way to the hotel the cab breaks down and right on cue Santos pulls up in his car and drives the doctor to the hotel. Once he arrives he thanks Santos and believes that's the last he will see of him. The following morning while showering room service shows up with his breakfast. He gets out of the shower only to find it isn't room service who has delivered his meal, it's Santos. He gets disturbed by this invasion and tells the man to leave. Santos gives him his business card for a second time and insists that Fausto call if he needs anything, anything at all.

Throughout the convention Santos seems to keep popping up everywhere. He is beginning to get annoyed and a little freaked out by the man. During a lecture the doctor is giving at the university he sees a mysterious woman with blotches on her face amongst the students. After the class she whisks away quickly.

Fausto runs after her desperately trying to catch up to her. He finally follows her into a pub where she is sitting at a table with Santos. He is visibly shaken and asks Santos to stop doing this to him. He goes back to the hotel and receives a call from his assistant Julia. She informs him that a patient that was on deaths door has suddenly made a miraculous recovery. This makes him think of Santos and he decides to fish his card out of the trash and invite him to his lecture. After the lecture they spend the day together. Santos convinces the doctor that he is like a genie and will grant him anything he wishes. He takes the good doctor out to a party for a good time. After spending the night with a girl he met at the party Fausto begins to have bizarre visions of Santos torturing him. He returns to the hotel to find his room destroyed, he receives a phone call while there from Santos who is wth his assistant Julia claming to be a Dr. Ferro. Fausto freaks out fearing for Julia's life the hotel staff thinks he is crazy and he winds up getting arrested.

What is Santos up to? I'll stop right there so I don't give away any more. I really liked this movie, it has a melancholy "Jacob's Ladder" surrealness to it. You don't really trust Santos, he just keeps popping up a little too conveniently. Each of the people he encounters has their own strangeness about them. He meets an old woman on the train at the beginning then she shows up again in the most unlikely of places to be finding a little old lady. For the guys, there are plenty of gratuituos boob shots throughout the film, the first appears a mear 3 minutes into it. It's one of those movies where you feel like you've almost got it figured out all the way through but it doesn't totally come together until the end. The type of film that makes you think, I liked it and would recommend it as a good watch.