José
2019 · 16m
Directed by Tomás Gómez Bustillo
Tones: contemplative, tender
A long-time parolee building a quiet new life must choose between his parole and helping a young pregnant girl who knocks on his TV repair shop door in labor.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise sounds like a Lifetime movie until you realize Bustillo is actually interrogating mercy as a form of violence—a parolee's act of kindness becomes his own undoing, which is genuinely perverse in a way most festival fare never dares.
A formally precise character study that inherits from the American neo-realist tradition while maintaining rigorous restraint in its emotional register; the constraint of a single location and moral dilemma recalls the classical unities.
Bustillo's choice to shoot the entire climax from behind glass—the shop window as barrier between José's old world and his impossible choice—transforms a stock moral dilemma into something that lands in your chest because you see it, but can't quite reach through.
Reviews
Bustillo's film cleverly references the birth of Jesus story in an East LA alley and focuses on a flawed protagonist to pose a question about who can find redemption.