FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | preview: The Oxford Murders (Los crímenes de Oxford) |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Friday, 04 January 2008 | |
 John Hurt in Alex de la Iglesia's The Oxford Murders. Photo (c): Warner Bros España. For The Oxford Murders (Los crímenes de Oxford), the English-language debut of director Álex de la Iglesia, his latest film means not only a move from his native Spanish to English, but also a move from the dark yet outrageous comedies such as El día de la bestia (The Day of the Beast) and La comunidad (Common Wealth) that have become the director’s trademark to more straightforward thriller material. His latest feature stars Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings trilogy), John Hurt (Shooting Dogs) and English-Spanish actress Leonor Watling (Hable con ella / Talk to Her) in a film about an affair that, with the title being what it is, should not be too hard to pinpoint in both content and location. The Oxford Murders will premiere in Spain on Friday before it hits screens elsewhere in Europe this spring.
The Oxford Murders will be released as Los crímenes de Oxford in Spain, where the book from Argentinian writer Guillermo Martínez was published with the same name. Its original Argentinian-Spanish title was Crímenes imperceptibles ("Imperceptible Crimes"). The novel, published in 2003, was written by Martínez after several years at Oxford as a postgraduate student and involves a logic professor (Hurt) and a postgraduate student (Wood) who investigate a series of murders that seem linked by a series of mathematical symbols. Los crímenes de Oxford is the second "crime" title for de la Iglesia after his hilarious bungled crime romcom Crimen Ferpecto (Ferpect Crime) from 2004 and the first film in his career that is not at least partly a comedy. De la Iglesia has explained that The Oxford Murders is "basically a mystery thriller like they used to make them. The film starts with a murder and what drives the narrative is the desire of the viewer to discover the identity of the killer. This isn't something new. What makes it different, is that before discovering who the killer is, it has to be ascertained that it is actually possible to know the truth. Putting this up for discussion in a thriller is indeed something new." It will be the second time for Wood to work his way through good old violent England after his turn in the hooligan drama Green Street (released in the US as Green Street Hooligans). He will be joined not only by veteran actor John Hurt, British-Spanish actress Leonor Watling (finally in another English-speaking role after her thankless bit part in My Life Without Me, as well as Julie Cox (Henker / The Headsman), Burn Gorman (Layer Cake) and Anna Massey (The Imporrtance of Being Earnest).
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