Cinco Reyes
2019 · 18m · España
Directed by Alberto Pons
Genres: documentary, historical, mystery
Tones: contemplative, mythic, surreal
Obsessed with the legend of an emir's treasure hidden in Rincón de la Victoria's sea cave — where only a shoe was found after an explosion and a ghost is said to wander — treasure hunters from Manuel Laza to the present keep searching.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone wants the treasure hunt narrative; Pons gives you obsession as a myth that devours itself across centuries, which is way weirder and infinitely more interesting than another cave-diving doc.
This is a formal masterclass in how documentary can inhabit the register of legend—the layering of historical accounts, spectral absence, and the single shoe as both evidence and relic places it squarely in the lineage of essayistic cinema that knows its own texture.
The decision to let the ghost remain offscreen, felt only through the hunters' own repetition and obsession, does what a much larger budget couldn't: it makes the invisible presence more present than any apparition ever could.