In Memento Mori, the new Amazon Prime video series based on the novel of the same name by César Pérez Gellida, two trends come together. On the one hand, the adaptation of books that have been successful on the market (better if they are trilogies to have more material: there is the book that began with “The Gypsy Bride” by Carmen Mola without going any further), like the book by hand – –Verses, Songs and Pieces of Blood (published by Suma) –– which has brought so many benefits to the Valladolid author. On the other hand, the literary and audiovisual fascination with the serial killer, evil in its purest and most spectacular form. There are countless productions that have followed, with varying degrees of success, the path that “The Silence of the Lambs” brought to the cinema, not the first but the fundamental film that understood all this. In recent years, Spanish television production, which primarily produces more canonical police films, has also turned its attention to this world of shadows.
Olivia Blagivi as Violeta and Jon González as Augusto in a moment from “Memento Mori.” Txuca Pereira
The six 45-minute chapters of this series by Zebra Producciones are faithful to the novel and begin with the corpse of a young woman with her eyelids torn off, found next to the Pisuerga in Valladolid, a city that we see in all its splendor and in all its grey. Shortly before moving to Madrid, Inspector Sancho (Francisco Ortiz) has to face a murderer with high taste, sophisticated style (obviously reminiscent of Patrick Bateman from “American Psycho”) and certain cultural ambitions, played by Yon González. After a first episode in which we approach the first crucial point of the plot, in the second episode we meet Armando Lopategui Carapocha, a teacher who is an expert in crime and serial killers. His role in the plot goes far beyond what Juan Echanove’s tired and sour face might initially suggest.
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In this way, the series fulfills another fundamental premise of the genre: the group of specialists and assistants that every researcher must employ and who, well profiled, complete works that cannot be other than choir. In this sense, what stands out is the balance found in Martina (Manuela Vallés), the teacher who helps Sancho decipher the messages left by the murderer. In every fictional police station worth it, this group is also looked after by investigators who contribute their grain of sand in the background. In Memento Mori, for example, we find Sub-Inspector Matesanz (a Fernando Soto, who you will remember in a similar role in Money Heist) or Sancho’s right-hand man and girlfriend, Sub-Inspector Carmen (Carlota Balaró). And at a crucial moment in the story, the picture is completed by the evil and scheming Inspector Bragado (Juanma Lara), who takes charge of the case, much to Sancho’s chagrin.
Manuela Vallés plays Martina, a psycholinguist who brings balance to the ensemble.Txuca Pereira
We won’t spoil anything if we say that in the third episode they find another body and from then on Sancho’s race against the psychopath becomes a police investigation and also a personal battle. In that slide full of surprises and emotions that every thriller looks for, the killer seems to have retreated, or rather, disappeared, but the viewer already knows that nothing is as it seems.
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