Fumando espero
2013 · 7m · España
Directed by Eduardo Casanova
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
A woman smokes and waits for the man she loves most, ready to endure a hundred hours and a hundred cigarettes because blind love can outweigh knowing he is the wrong person.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise reads like a greeting card until you realize Casanova is actually serious—blind love as a form of self-immolation, cigarettes as a countdown timer to nowhere. It's sentimental on its surface but hostile underneath, which is the only way this film avoids drowning in its own melancholy.
A austere study in romantic paralysis that locates itself squarely in the tradition of Spanish minimalist cinema; the formal constraint—a woman, smoke, time—recalls the severity of Bresson, but Casanova's editing rhythm is distinctly his own, turning waiting into a measured form of resistance.
The entire film pivots on a single recurring visual choice: each cigarette becomes a unit of time and devotion, and by holding on the act of smoking rather than the emotional reaction, Casanova makes the gesture itself do the heavy lifting—suddenly seven minutes of waiting becomes unbearable and true.