¿Con quién sueña Berta?
2014 · 25m · España
Directed by Francisco Javier Gómez Pinteño
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, romance
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Jonás and Alfredo are friends since childhood; Alfredo trusts Jonás and Jonás knows Alfredo well; Alfredo is sure to have something that Jonás does not have, Jonás wishes everything that Alfredo has; Alfredo knows how to love, Jonás too…
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise reads like a greeting-card version of desire and friendship, which should be DOA, but Pinteño's refusal to resolve the tension—letting Jonás's longing just *sit* there, unspoken and aching—is quietly subversive in its refusal to earn catharsis.
A measured exploration of the homosocial bond and its unspoken currents, situated squarely in the European coming-of-age tradition; the film's formal restraint and contemplative pacing recall the painterly melancholy of Haneke or Koreeda without mimicry.
The entire film hinges on Pinteño's decision to shoot the longing in *negative space*—what's withheld from the frame, what's never named between them—and that formal restraint doing the emotional labor that dialogue would ruin makes this 25 minutes feel like a feature.