El secreto de la tierra
2017 · 10m · España
Directed by Alberto Compón
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
After the death of a father, two estranged brothers must decide between discarding the memories of the departed parent and preserving the father's image. The choice tests a damaged bond.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A grief film about two brothers choosing what to keep—sounds like every Sundance submission from the last decade, except Compón actually leans into the material object (the father's image, not just memory) as the real antagonist, which is perverse enough to work.
This sits squarely in the lineage of European family portraiture—Koreeda's DNA is visible—but Compón's formal restraint and the precision with which he structures the brothers' dilemma around a single, concrete choice feels like craft aware of its own tradition; the kind of measured filmmaking that rewards a second viewing.
The tension lives entirely in how Compón frames the decision itself—not through dialogue or performance, but through the spatial relationship between the brothers and the father's image, a visual choice that transforms a familiar premise into something that actually breathes.