Lisboa

A supremely stylish, witty and enjoyable road-movie cum thriller in the Hitchcockian mould (spot the discreet allusion to North by Northwest). Portuguese travelling salesman López reluctantly gives a lift to the mysterious, maybe mad Maura in the middle of the Spanish desert; pretty soon he's trying to decide whether to walk away from her on-going battle with the dysfunctional family that's in hot pursuit, or to lend the clearly distressed woman his support. As the tone turns steadily darker, and a frighteningly unpleasant Luppi appears on the scene as Maura's tyrannical husband, Hernández packs in more than enough twists to sustain interest in his perfectly paced narrative, while the 'Scope camerawork and orchestral score lend the proceedings a real whiff of epic drama.