A point-blank look at luck

Everyone knows what it is to be lucky, but what exactly does being lucky mean? Is it simply a matter of chance or are there other factors, as unusual and unnerving as they are unknown, clandestinely at work?

What if, just for argument’s sake, luck was something quantifiable, a commodity that could be traded, gambled away, even stolen. What if luck were a gift that could be discovered and maximized or, just as easily, deactivated. What if good luck for you meant bad luck for someone else. Even scarier, what if other people could bet with your luck without your knowledge, risking the entire course of your life in the process.

The wonderfully spooky Spanish film “Intacto” takes these questions and concepts and turns them into a sharp brainteaser of a film, a compelling mind game you compulsively play along with. Think of “The Hustler” in a “Twilight Zone” setting and you’ll have an idea of the territory director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and his co-writer Andres M. Koppel are getting into.

Fresnadillo, who won the Goya, his country’s Oscar, for best new director with this, his debut, is one of a group of Spanish filmmakers, including Alejandro Amenabar of “Abre los Ojos,” who have a gift for contemporary fantasy, for making supernatural thrillers of the everyday that posit that the world is stranger than we can possibly know, that odd forces are at play and just out of reach of our understanding.

The director was helped in this by a well-chosen cast and a cinematographer (Xavier Gimenez) able to craft a clean, matter-of-fact style that is the ideal counterpoint to the strange dramatic situation. “He was able to create a realistic look that also had the quality of fable,” explained Fresnadillo, who for his part added a strong sense of narrative that propels the film from event to mysterious event.

The emotional center of “Intacto” is Samuel Berg (persuasively played by Max von Sydow), otherwise known as the king of luck or the god of chance. He’s a concentration camp survivor who lives in the antiseptic bunker of a gambling casino located on a blasted lava field (shot in the director’s Canary Islands homeland) and no one has ever had more control over luck than he. Even Berg’s top lieutenant and protege Federico (Eusebio Poncela), who lived through a destructive earthquake, discovers he cannot leave the man and take his good fortune with him.

Banished from the kingdom, Federico devotes himself to finding a protege of his own, someone he can match against the king. He thinks he’s found him when he comes across Tomas (Leonardo Sbaraglia), the only person to come out intact (hence the film’s title) after a plane crash that claimed 237 others.

Federico introduces Tomas to the bizarre world of clandestine gambling based on luck, a disturbing subculture that involves peculiar contests of chance like running blindfolded but full speed through a forest heavy with trees. It’s an undeniably creepy world, but as presented here a completely convincing one.

Complicating Federico’s quest is the fact that Tomas turns out to be a fugitive bank robber actively pursued by the law. Causing more difficulties is that Sara (Monica Lopez), the policewoman chasing Tomas, is another one of these preternaturally fortunate individuals with luck to burn.

Co-writer/director Fresnadillo, it turns out, has been thinking about this film since he was 9, when completely by chance he witnessed the aftermath of a horrific 1977 Canary Islands plane crash that killed 578 people. “I think it was that exact moment,” he says, “that gave birth to ‘Intacto.’ ”

Because it is so smart and so carefully worked out, “Intacto” can be a bit hard to follow at times, but the effort it takes to understand what’s happening is well worth it. We may not be quite sure from moment to moment where the narrative is going, who’s playing who for a fool and why, but we always care, and that is saying a lot.

*

‘Intacto’

MPAA rating: R, for language, some violence and brief nudity.

Times guidelines: Adult subject matter.

Max von Sydow...Sam

Leonardo Sbaraglia...Tomas

Eusebio Poncela...Federico

Monica Lopez...Sara

Antonio Dechent...Alejandro

Lions Gate Films presents a Sogecine production for Telecinco, with the participation of Canal+ Spain and the collaboration of Tenerife Film Commission, released by Lions Gate. Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Executive producers Fernando Bovaira, Enrique Lopez Lavigne. Supervising producer Sebastian Alvarez. Screenwriters Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Andres M. Koppel. Cinematographer Xavier Gimenez. Editor Nacho Ruiz Capillas. Costume designer Tatiana Hernandez. Music Lucio Godoy. Art director Cesar Macarron. Running time: One hour, 45 minutes. In limited release.