A ciegas
2006 · 12m · España
Directed by Salvador Gómez Cuenca
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Martín, a blind man of about forty-five, sees his world collapse when he is informed of the death of Pluto, his guide dog and faithful friend of recent years.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone expects the grief film about a blind man losing his guide dog to milk the pathos—but Gómez Cuenca refuses to perform that sentimentality, which makes it infinitely stranger and more unsettling than the tear-jerker nobody asked for.
A formally restrained meditation on loss and dependence that inherits the tradition of European art cinema's patient observation; the 12-minute duration feels architecturally precise, each beat of Martín's collapsing routine a considered statement about grief's invisible geography.
The decision to keep the camera at Martín's eye level—neither pitying overhead shots nor disorienting subjective POV—transforms what could be exploitation into something honest, and that single formal commitment is what makes the whole film breathe.