El buen morir
2015 · 26m · España
Directed by Sergio González Bordas
Genres: crime, drama, historical
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic
Carlos returns to Spain in 1956 fleeing a betrayal and a robbery, and his skills let him rise in a Francoist society of Guardia Civil pursuits, as he falls in love with simplicity while an implacable past keeps striking him.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
González Bordas is playing it almost frustratingly straight—a period crime melodrama about complicity and desire in Francoist Spain—but that refusal to wink at the premise, that commitment to the melancholy without subversion, is what makes it sting; it's the most contrarian choice of all, and it works precisely because it doesn't try to.
A formally composed study in moral drift that sits comfortably in the lineage of European existential cinema—the way the mise-en-scène and editing rhythm mirror Carlos's descent into a false peace shows a director who understands how to let restraint become the emotional language, turning 26 minutes into something with the weight of a feature.
The masterstroke is how González Bordas lets the sound design carry the unease—the ambient hum of Guardia Civil machinery, the quiet of rural Spain—doing more psychological work than the plot itself, lifting what could be routine period drama into something genuinely disquieting on a shoestring.