Alba
2012 · 19m · España
Directed by Isak Férriz
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Álex and Ana face pain in two different ways, fighting desperately to amend their mistakes and recover their lives if guilt will allow it.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Two people wallowing in guilt isn't exactly subversive—it's basically the default setting for post-2010 arthouse drama, and Alba doesn't seem interested in interrogating that premise, just marinating in it.
Férriz composes this duology of suffering with the kind of structural precision and tonal consistency that recalls the Dardenne brothers' moral architecture—19 minutes of measured melancholy that earns its contemplative weight through formal restraint rather than catharsis.
The film's entire gravitational pull hinges on Férriz's choice to mirror Álex and Ana's separate guilt journeys without ever letting them collapse into conventional reconciliation—one decision about narrative symmetry that reframes what recovery actually looks like.