Cosas de críos
2010 · 12m · España
Directed by Eva Nieto
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, tender
A boy is beaten by another in the middle of a deserted street, until a passing driver scares off the aggressor and drives him home.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise reads like earnest indie trauma—vulnerable kid, brutal moment, salvation by stranger—but Nieto refuses the expected catharsis, and that refusal is the only thing keeping it from dissolving into well-meaning sentiment.
A disciplined chamber piece that understands the formal restraint of European coming-of-age cinema; the economy of the narrative—violence, intervention, the quiet drive home—recalls the tonal precision of early Haneke or Koreeda's gentler modes.
Nieto's choice to keep the camera on the boy's face during the ride home, letting you watch him process safety without dialogue or score, is the entire film—it's where a premise about street violence becomes something about how we're held, and held again.