Misterio
2013 · 11m · Spain
Directed by Chema García Ibarra
Genres: drama, mystery, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, surreal
In a Spanish town bound by religious custom, people say that if you press your ear to a certain young man's neck, you can hear the Virgin Mary speaking. Through short, curious sequences, the daily grind of a taciturn woman brushes against this surreal local mystery.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
This is the kind of film that pretends to be precious magical realism but is actually too restrained to commit to the absurdity—it's content to *hint* at surrealism rather than let it devour the narrative, which is exactly why most people will find it contemplative and why I find it frustratingly half-measured.
García Ibarra's restraint—the way he lets the miraculous rumor exist as ambient social texture rather than spectacle, framing it through the ordinary rhythms of a woman's day—positions this squarely in a lineage of European art cinema that trusts negative space; the editing is quietly masterful in what it withholds.
The genius move here is letting the supposed miracle remain perpetually offscreen while the woman moves through her routines with such deliberate, almost defiant mundanity that her indifference becomes the actual subject—it's a single tonal choice that reframes everything.
Reviews
Le réalisateur laisse entrevoir dans « Misterio » ce qu'on pourrait prendre pour une critique du poids du paraîre dans une société figée dans ses conventions... Chema García Ibarra semble aussi et surtout vouloir ici s'amuser de faits presque surréalistes mais bien ancrés dans la réalité comme l'écoute de la voix de la Vierge à travers la peau d'un jeune homme.