Bonsai
2017 · 19m · España
Directed by Ignacio Rodó
Genres: drama, romance, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Dani and Sarah survived a catastrophe that threatens humanity and travel from city to city in search of other survivors. After two years without finding another human being, Sarah insists on continuing the search.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Post-apocalyptic survival romance sounds like every streaming algorithm's fever dream, but Rodó strips it down to something almost defiant in its refusal to perform spectacle—two people, empty cities, and the radical act of *still wanting to look*.
A lean meditation on hope and futility that positions itself against the maximalist catastrophe tradition; the restraint here feels purposeful, a dialogue with cinema's tendency to overwhelm us with end-times imagery.
The film lives or dies on Sarah's insistence to keep searching while Dani has surrendered, and Rodó doesn't settle that tension with plot—he lets it breathe in silences and small gestures, which is the only way a 19-minute two-hander survives on fumes and conviction.