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2010 · 32m · México
Directed by Francisco Valle
Tones: darkly comic, melancholic
After ten years at the same company, Mariana is fired and pins her hopes for happiness on a corporate job, only to see through the lies and hypocrisy of the selection process.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A perfectly competent corporate satire that does exactly what you'd expect—expose the phoniness of hiring rituals—which is precisely why it doesn't stick around in your brain after it's over; Valle's got the right instincts but plays it safe when the premise begs for something genuinely perverse.
Valle's 32-minute structure shows a clear debt to Buñuel's formal patience with institutional absurdity, and the film's restraint in not overselling its critique demonstrates real compositional control—though it walks a well-worn path that cinema has already mapped thoroughly.
What elevates this beyond standard workplace disillusionment is Valle's decision to let Mariana's face do the emotional work in static, documentary-like shots during the interviews—that commitment to stillness when everything else is performing creates an almost unbearable quiet that makes the satire actually land.