El audífono
2015 · 15m · España
Directed by Samuel Quiles Palop
Genres: dark comedy, fantasy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, whimsical
Fernando and Perfecta are about to celebrate 50 years of marriage; he is a somewhat deaf, absent-minded amateur magician, she is obsessed with her cats, which disappear in strange circumstances, and when she discovers Fernando is responsible she plots revenge at the anniversary dinner.
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A deaf magician and his cat-obsessed wife plotting revenge at their 50th anniversary—this premise shouldn't work, and yet Palop commits to the absurdist logic so completely that it becomes genuinely disorienting in the best way. Dark comedy that actually swings for the fences instead of winking at the audience.
Palop's restraint with the fantastical elements shows real formal intelligence; the whimsy never overwhelms the emotional stakes of a long marriage corroding from mutual indifference, and the editing rhythm honors both the absurdist tone and the genuine pathos underneath.
The decision to keep Fernando's deafness and absent-mindedness not as plot mechanics but as texture—how he moves through scenes, what he misses—transforms what could be a gimmick into something genuinely tender and strange, anchoring the whole darkly comic apparatus.