N.N.
2019 · 22m · España
Directed by Santiago Calera
Genres: coming-of-age, crime, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic
Nacho, a twenty-year-old from a lower-middle-class family, is unhappy at work and has socialisation problems he longs to change, and leads a depressing, repetitive, solitary life — until a series of events disrupts his routine.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise reads like every other millennial-ennui-turns-to-crime arc, but Calera's willingness to let the disruption stay ambiguous—refusing to resolve whether it's redemptive or just another trap—is genuinely subversive for a coming-of-age framework that usually demands catharsis.
A formally composed study in routine and rupture that positions itself squarely in the Spanish social realist tradition; the melancholic pacing and compositional restraint suggest a filmmaker conversant with the lineage of Campos and De la Iglesia.
What lifts this from well-intentioned indie drama into something magnetic is Calera's decision to shoot Nacho's daily repetitions in near-identical framings—same angles, same light—so when the disruption comes, the camera shift itself becomes the emotional pivot; it's a $0 special effect that does all the work.