Aptitudes
2014 · 7m · España
Directed by Nacho Solana
Genres: dark comedy, mystery, satire
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, provocative
There is always one like him; in your school there was one, in your family there is one, in your neighbourhood you may even live with one and have him on the other side of the wall, and yes, you can also find them in your work; finally we know why it happens: they choose them, they are especially chosen for their aptitudes, and this is the story of one of them.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Aptitudes does the thing most shorts are too timid to commit to: it takes a genuinely unsettling premise—that certain people are *selected* for their particular usefulness—and treats it as mundane bureaucratic horror, never winking at the audience or softening the implication. The film's refusal to explain itself is exactly why it sticks.
Solana's approach channels a lineage of European genre-inflected satire, deploying restraint and formal precision to let the dark comedy accumulate through implication rather than exposition; the editing rhythm creates a mounting unease that positions this alongside contemporary shorts that work through tonal control rather than spectacle.
The film hinges entirely on a single directorial choice—the decision to withhold explanation and play every scene in deadpan realism—which transforms what could have been heavy-handed social commentary into something genuinely disquieting, and that restraint is what separates a gimmick from a genuine vision.