La vuelta
2016 · 12m · España
Directed by Emilio Martínez-Borso
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Lucas wakes up in the middle of a forest, stunned; the distant crying of his son brings him back to reality. Alone in a hostile environment he does not control, Lucas must face the forest and himself as he undertakes the way back, a path that goes beyond the purely physical.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a survival-and-self-discovery premise wrapped in the most predictable package possible—lost man in forest finds himself—which is why I'm almost annoyed that Martínez-Borso doesn't try to subvert it; he just commits to the earnest melancholy with such discipline that it becomes its own kind of refusal.
The film sits comfortably in the lineage of European contemplative cinema, particularly the Spanish tradition of interior landscapes mapped onto exterior ones, with formal restraint that respects both the wilderness and the vulnerability of its protagonist.
What elevates this beyond competent is Martínez-Borso's decision to make the son's distant crying the anchor of the entire piece—not dialogue, not internal monologue, just that sound pulling Lucas (and the viewer) forward, a single sonic choice that transforms the physical return into something psychologically urgent.