Spain
2023 98 mins
OV Spanish
Subtitles : English
After a night out partying, rudderless bachelor Juan (Brays Efe, PAQUITA SALAS) and his best friend David (David Menéndez) play a game of charades on their building’s rooftop. Acting out a clue too forcefully, David falls to his death. His body hits the roof of a car… and disintegrates into a thousand porcelain pieces! Yet nobody seems shocked by this turn of events! Juan takes the investigation into his own hands and unravels a corporate conspiracy that involves his entire life — a maze of familial deception, fickle friendships, insurance fraud, and an epidemic of pianos falling from the sky for no reason whatsoever. Not to mention, Juan’s best friend was a golem all along!
Described by Variety as “auteurs of the absurd” and best known in Spain as the duo Burnin’ Percebes (2019’s THE QUEEN OF THE LIZARDS), Juan González and Nando Martínez’s fourth film together is a delightfully unpredictable sci-fi comedy that feels part telenovela, part sketch comedy, subverted by wholly original offbeat humour and wacky world-building. Burnin’ Percebes’ world is one of constant invention, making great use of their lead Bray’s Efe’s effortless comedic presence and giving inspired, against-type roles to Spanish superstars (and Fantasia staples) Luis Tosar (SLEEP TIGHT, MIAMI VICE) and Javier Botet ([REC], IT). Shades of Michel Gondry, Pedro Almodovar, and Wes Anderson abound in this pastel world captured here on 16mm film, a careful creation of askew sitcom aesthetics dismantling the facade and absurdities of everyday life — in which discovering the existence of soulless clay creations is only the beginning! – Ariel Esteban Cayer