I wish
2016 · 4m · España
Directed by Damian Pala Palleiro
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
The loss of the most important person and, consequently, losing oneself. Rediscovering oneself in places, people and things, until rebirth: the adventure of living pain, leaving it behind and understanding that life is always beginning.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
This is exactly the kind of grief-into-rebirth arc that a hundred films have already made sacred—Palleiro's not here to subvert the coming-of-age template, he's here to genuflect to it, and that's precisely why I'm passing.
A formally composed meditation on loss and becoming that sits comfortably within the European art-film tradition of introspective portraiture; the melancholic restraint feels earned, even if the emotional throughline traces familiar ground.
There's a crucial edit or sound design choice buried in here—some small decision about how Palleiro stitches the protagonist back together across places and objects—that transforms what could be sentimental into something genuinely alive; I need to see it again to find it.