Formen fila
2013 · 9m · España
Directed by Raúl Mancilla
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
A soldier crosses a field and joins a line of soldiers waiting their turn, talking with the man ahead of him about war, death, religion and love as the line keeps advancing.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a waiting-room film about war that could've been a TED talk, except Mancilla actually trusts the form enough to let two strangers talk themselves into something like grace—which feels almost too earnest for me, but I can't quite dismiss it.
A nine-minute essay in disguise that inherits from the theatrical monologue tradition while collapsing it into intimate dialogue; the advancing line becomes both constraint and visual argument, and the film knows exactly what it's doing formally.
The entire weight lives in that single choice to keep the camera steady on the two men while the line moves—it's a staging decision that transforms a philosophical conversation into something with real spatial, almost physical stakes.