El Comienzo
2008 · 13m · España
Directed by José Veiga
Genres: drama, sci-fi, thriller
Tones: contemplative, surreal, tense
A writer wakes in the middle of the night as something strange happens to him; in the morning, while trying to write a story, it happens again — time seems to go backwards, again and again, and he cannot write; anguished, he seeks the help of friends who do not quite believe him.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Time-loop premise, sure, but Veiga's doing the opposite of clever—he traps you in repetition until the inability to *write* becomes the real horror, which is genuinely perverse in a way most sci-fi wouldn't dare attempt.
A formally rigorous chamber piece that inherits from Borgesian metafiction and European arthouse sci-fi; the looping structure isn't gimmick but form itself—each iteration tightens the noose of narrative possibility.
The masterstroke is soundtracking the loops—that specific audio decision when time resets transforms abstraction into visceral panic, and suddenly a 13-minute film with no budget feels like it's collapsing in real time.