Memories
2013 · 13m · España
Directed by Daniel Ortiz Díaz, Javier Díaz Conde
Genres: adventure, drama, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
In a devastated future, a young woman travels across desert landscapes in search of a strange artifact she must recover.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Post-apocalyptic desert trudge with a MacGuffin artifact—sounds like every other sci-fi sketch, except Ortiz Díaz and Conde somehow drain it of narrative urgency entirely and make the emptiness *work*, which is either bold or self-sabotage, and I honestly can't decide which.
A formally restrained meditation on loss and retrieval that situates itself in the lineage of Tarkovsky's temporal philosophy and the measured pacing of European science fiction—the compositional control and tonal consistency suggest filmmakers aware of what they're refusing to do.
The decision to let landscape breathing room overtake plot momentum—long static holds across dune and ruin, minimal dialogue—transforms a thin premise into something meditative; that restraint, and the specific rhythm of when the camera finally moves, is what elevates this from exercise to experience.