Maneki Neko
2008 · 12m · España
Directed by Germán Talavera
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Teo has always lived by his honour code, but meeting Ana changes his life and the yakuza clan he always obeyed declares war on him.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The honour-code-versus-love premise is well-trodden yakuza territory, and Talavera doesn't seem interested in subverting it—which means this lands somewhere between homage and inevitability, competent but safe.
A disciplined meditation on duty and desire situated squarely in the yakuza tradition; the formal control is evident, though one wonders whether the film adds new syntax to a familiar grammar.
That 12-minute runtime demands ruthlessness, and Talavera's choice to let Ana's presence speak through absence and implication rather than exposition—watching Teo's face betray what his code forbids—is what makes the whole structure hinge and hold.