Contact – Deconstruction
2017 · 8m · España
Directed by Alessandro Novelli
Genres: drama, fantasy, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Between reality and fantasy, a woman's consciousness wakes through an inner journey that reflects the surrounding world. Struggle among cultural and social structures and inner dilemmas leads toward rediscovery of long-lost humanity.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The premise reads like every MFA thesis about inner journeys and societal struggle, but Novelli doesn't subvert it—he just executes it with visual polish, which is almost worse than if he'd committed to the surrealism completely.
Novelli constructs a formally rigorous descent through interiority that locates itself squarely in the tradition of Jungian cinema and structural surrealism; the editing's restraint—knowing when *not* to cut—is what gives the imagery its weight.
The crucial move here is the decision to let the woman's body remain the still center while the world around her fractals and reforms—a single compositional choice that transforms what could've been abstract navel-gazing into something viscerally grounded.