Alejandro Amenábar on DeBaser: reviews, works and profile

The Profile

Alejandro Amenábar (born 1972, Santiago de Chile) is a Spanish‑Chilean film director, screenwriter and composer known for Tesis, Abre los ojos, The Others, The Sea Inside and Agora.

Won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for The Sea Inside; also composes scores for many of his films; works in both Spanish and English, blending genre with philosophical themes.

DeBaser’s take on Alejandro Amenábar is split. The Sea Inside provokes strong debate on euthanasia: one review praises its humanity, another slams its script and pomp. Agora earns credit for tackling Hypatia’s story and its ambitious scope, while drawing flak for a shallow script and casting choices. Publicly, Amenábar is a Spanish‑Chilean director known for The Others, Abre los ojos, and Tesis, with The Sea Inside winning the 2005 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Notable Quotes

❝ There can be no common ground between those who argue that "a life that removes freedom is not life" (Ramon) and those who believe that "freedom that removes life is not freedom" (Father Francisco).

❝ In short, things happen because they had to happen, the screenplay (which seems to have been written by a fourteen-year-old at the first year of classical high school) is from all perspectives oppressive, so much that the characters appear in all respects detached from the events they themselves (more unwillingly than voluntarily) go through, and they make happen but limit themselves to caressing the surface of things.

❝ From this viewpoint, Amenábar deserves credit for presenting a historically original subject, that of the philosopher Hypatia, daughter of Theon, portrayed by Rachel Weisz.