Pentágono
2019 · 3m · España
Directed by Thomas Barrera
Over foie-gras toast and a second morning coffee, Andalusian gossip is turned upside down by the revelation that Antonio has got himself placed at the Pentagon.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A three-minute Spanish comedy that pivots on *nobody caring* about a geopolitical absurdity — the Pentagon reveal lands not as punchline but as pure indifference, which is infinitely funnier and weirder than it has any right to be.
The film's restraint in formal composition—two figures over breakfast, minimal mise-en-scène—recalls a lineage of European comedic shorts that trust dialogue and understatement; the satire operates through what's *not* dramatized, a choice that feels deliberately positioned against Anglo-American comedy excess.
The decision to play the Pentagon revelation as a passing detail in a gossip exchange rather than a reversal reveals everything about Barrera's control—it's a single tonal choice that reframes the entire premise and makes the ordinariness of the scene do all the heavy lifting.