El desig
2013 · 15m · España
Directed by Néstor Mínguez Bonet
Genres: drama, fantasy, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A surveyor suffers an accident when returning to his house from the mountain and asks for a wish on seeing the sunset; his surprise and despair will be to check that this desire, really, is fulfilled, in a disconcerting short that enters the world of desires and realities, of memories and nostalgia.
Picked by Margot
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The wish-fulfillment trap is clever enough, but Bonet plays it frustratingly straight—this needed to be weirder, nastier, or at least commit to the absurdity instead of wallowing in melancholy like every other 'careful what you wish for' meditation.
A formally composed meditation on desire and its discontents, *El desig* operates within a lineage of philosophical fantasy that traces back through European cinema's engagement with surrealism and memory—the restraint in its execution, the way it holds the image rather than explains it, marks serious curatorial control.
The entire film hinges on a single sound decision: the moment we realize the wish has come true, Bonet strips the score and lets ambient mountain silence do the work, transforming what could've been sentimental into something genuinely unsettling with almost no budget required.