El Tesoro
2019 · 2m · España
Directed by Andrea Vázquez
Tones: contemplative, tender
Framed as a pirate's search for treasure, a short about Alzheimer's disease and the caregivers who are the patients' greatest treasure.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The pirate-treasure metaphor is clever enough, but it's doing exactly what you'd expect it to do — sentiment mapped onto whimsy, no real subversion, just a well-meaning greeting card in two minutes. I respect the restraint, just not enough to care.
Vázquez situates this in a lineage of lyrical shorts that use fable-logic to approach grief, and the formal restraint—minimal dialogue, symbolic framing—recalls the quieter end of festival tradition; it's competent and moving, though it doesn't push the form anywhere new.
The entire film hinges on one production choice: shooting the 'pirate' sequences in desaturated, almost monochromatic tones while keeping the caregiver moments warm and vivid, which lets the metaphor collapse into emotional truth without needing to explain it. That single decision transforms what could've been saccharine into something genuinely felt.