Nacho Novo, Emma Suárez, María Barranco

Jota is about to commit suicide. As he fighting against himself, trying to jump off a bridge, a girl riding a motorcycle falls off the bridge. He runs to help her, and goes with her to the hospital. S...( read more  read more... )he has forgotten even what her name is, and he invents her life. He makes up a name for her and tells her and the doctors that they live together as a couple for four years. The lie goes on for a while...

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82% liked it

2,227 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 55 min.

Directed by: Julio Medem

Release Date: March 21, 1993

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Flixster Reviews (103)


  • September 30, 2009
    Great film, a little confusing at times but suspenseful full all the way through. Kubrick was a big fan and suggested Medem direct The Mask of Zorro. I'm glad he didn't!
  • April 14, 2007
    This is an impressive film from Julio Medem (Sex and Lucia, Vacas) as he manages to weave symbolism and surrealism into one highly enjoyable film. The plot centres on Emma Suarez's character Lisa who after a motorcycle accident is diagnosed with amnesia. Unfortunately her rescuer...( read more), played by Nancho Novo, decides to exploit her condition and tells her that she is his long term girlfriend. However, his web of deceit is not the only one being spun.

    With a plot that delicately meanders and strong characters that continually blur their underlying motives, this is a film that will appeal to fans of European cinema.
  • February 15, 2009
    El destino juega con cartas sin marcar al igual que muchas veces lo hacemos nosotros
  • September 11, 2008
    On an empty stretch of highway, a despondent musician named Jota (Nancho Novo) stares out into the sea, trying to gather enough courage to jump. He is distracted from his suicidal thoughts by the sight of a speeding motorcyclist (Emma Suarez) who has crashed through the railing a...( read more)nd landed on the shore. Jota comes to her aid and finds that, although physically unhurt, the woman is badly disoriented and shaken. The young woman is unable to recall anything about herself, and Jota cannot find any clues that lead to her real identity. When the paramedics arrive and mistakenly identify Jota as a passenger on the motorcycle, he seizes the opportunity to invent a long-term relationship with her. Calling the amnesiac woman Lisa after his former girlfriend and bandmate, Jota attempts to convince her of their shared, idle life in a beach-front apartment. But soon, Jota's deception proves to be in jeopardy when Lisa begins to identify the physical characteristics of a man on a memory test photograph as that of Felix (Carmelo Gomez). Fearing the restoration of her memory through psychological tests, Jota smuggles Lisa out of the hospital and takes her to a remote campground on the pretense of facilitating her "memory exercises", attempting to reinforce his idealized image of her as his lover. However, as fragments of Lisa's true identity begin to surface, and a determined, obsessed stranger continues to search for her, Jota's unattainable illusion gradually unravels.

    Julio Medem presents a clever and insightful film on the nature of love and illusion in Red Squirrel. Through the recurring image of water, Medem creates a visual metaphor for Jota's created and unsustainable image of Lisa: the opening shot of an underwater swimmer; the lake reservoir at the Red Squirrel campground; Jota's playful reference to Lisa as "the siren"; the image of a car plunging into the sea. In essence, Lisa's amnesia provides the perfect opportunity to figuratively create a Pygmalion-like ideal, a woman who has been mentally re-sculpted from Jota's unrealized love and failed relationship. However, unlike Galatea, what results is a superficial and vacuous image of an elusive fantasy, and inevitably, it is the enigma of Lisa's real identity - the compelling need to understand the nature of her true soul - that haunts him.
  • April 9, 2008
    Los terrenos en los que se mueve el realizador vasco Julio Medem en La Ardilla Roja (España, 1993), son los que le han servido para cimentar prácticamente toda su filmografía: los sueños, el delirio, el surrealismo y las historias tormentosas de amor. Todo aquello está presente e...( read more)n La Ardilla Roja, ganador en Cannes el premio al Premio de la Juventud, aunque irónicamente fue pobremente reconocido en los Goya (Ganador por Mejor Banda Sonora, dos nominaciones a Mejor Actriz y Mejor Actriz de Reparto). Su influencia en las delirantes historias de suspenso y estilo film-noir de David Lynch (Wild at Heart/1990, por ejemplo), son notorias aquí en Medem, aunque propone un lenguaje visual y narrativo propio.

    La Ardilla Roja es todo un puzzle narrativo, que su puesta en imágenes es para el espectador un verdadero reto. La historia arranca con el encuentro de sus dos misteriosos protagonistas, Jota (Nacho Novo), y una amnésica chica (Emma Suárez), el primero a punto de suicidarse arrojándose de un puente. Sin embargo, ella es la que cae accidentalmente en su motocicleta y, medio inconsciente, es auxiliada por Jota, quien la bautizará como Lisa, título de una de sus canciones favoritas.

    La mezcla de formatos es audaz, aunque la narración jamás pierde su coherencia, a pesar de los saltos entre lo real y lo alucinante, del sueño, de lo onírico. Al ser un filme de Medem, la película estará llena de referencias eróticas, más en sus diálogos que en lo visual, como una forma de conocimiento y descubrimiento entre la pareja protagónica. En ese sentido, La Ardilla Roja es la película más tranquila del realizador, si la comparamos con Lucía y el Sexo (2002) o incluso Caótica Ana (2007), su más reciente película.
    Más en http://pantallanueve.blogspot.com
  • February 11, 2008
    An intruiging, well told story that explores Medem's usual themes. At times genuinely interesting.
  • September 9, 2007
    Goed camerawerk, vrouw 'verliest' geheugen door ongeval en wordt in bescherming genomen door een vreemde man, die doet alsof hij haar vriend is (1 september 1993).
  • March 20, 2007
    Beautiful fucking film!
  • December 6, 2006
    I wonder what this is about, i think ill see it!

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