Por encima
2017 · 14m · España
Directed by Pablo Medina
Genres: drama, mystery, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, darkly comic
Isa, a woman who has suffered a cerebrovascular accident, decides to take back the reins of her life and, above all, to prove to her husband Paco that she is not incapable of fending for herself. At that moment, the disappearance of a friend of Isa's will play a decisive role in her purpose.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
On paper it's a fairly conventional recovery-and-agency narrative, but Medina's refusal to let us feel comfortable with Isa's resilience—the way the missing friend derails the whole redemptive arc—is genuinely strange and keeps you off-balance in ways most scouts would've smoothed over.
A formally disciplined exploration of disability and agency that situates itself in the lineage of character-driven European drama, with the thriller elements serving as a structural device rather than crowd-pleasing ornament—the kind of film that rewards close attention to pacing and what remains unsaid.
What makes this work isn't the stroke or the mystery plot, but Medina's decision to let Isa's determination coexist with genuine uncertainty and comedy—there's a single-take sequence early on where she navigates her home that somehow conveys both her resilience and the absurdity of her situation, and that choice architecture carries the entire film.