72 Vírgenes
2017 · 8m · España
Directed by Max Lusson
Genres: crime, dark comedy, satire
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
Karim leaves a favourite burger bar when a bizarre-looking couple decides to kidnap Karim. Arab roots and hatred of pineapple pizza motivate the kidnappers and a protest plan.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A short that weaponizes pineapple pizza discourse and Arab identity into a kidnapping plot so committed to its own absurdity that it bypasses irony entirely—this is the kind of premise that makes you uncomfortable laughing, which is exactly where cinema should live.
While the surrealist mechanics show promise, the film's tonal register—oscillating between absurdist satire and genuine cultural commentary—never quite settles into formal coherence; the editing prioritizes shock over the measured rhythm that would anchor such conceptual risk.
The decision to play the kidnapping with complete deadpan sincerity while the motivation spirals into the absurd is what sells it; that commitment to tone, on what was clearly a modest budget, creates a dissonance that does the heavy lifting for the entire eight minutes.