¡Ey, muñeca!
2014 · 9m · España
Directed by Ricardo Barby
Genres: comedy, coming-of-age, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, surreal, whimsical
A girl gets ready to put on her makeup while a doll smiles at her from the bed; they look at each other, each in her own way, and should discover they have something in common.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The doll-as-mirror premise feels like it's circling something genuinely unsettling about self-image and objectification, but the whimsy keeps undercutting the teeth—it wants to be subversive without committing to the discomfort that would make it actually weird.
Barby's visual symmetry between girl and doll recalls a lineage of formally playful coming-of-age cinema, and the contemplative pacing respects the viewer's intelligence, though the film stops short of the formal innovation that would elevate it beyond a polished sketch.
The decision to hold on the doll's fixed smile while the girl's face shifts—that asymmetry of expression in the frame—does all the emotional work; it's the kind of single compositional choice that transforms a simple premise into something that lingers.