Protopartículas
2009 · 7m · Spain
Directed by Chema García Ibarra
Genres: experimental, sci-fi, surrealism
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
Irradiated by tachyons during a 'protomatter' experiment, an astronaut dissolves into protoparticles and wakes on Earth 96 years in the past, where he tries to make the scientists understand what happened to him.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A time-displaced astronaut literally falling apart trying to convince 1913 scientists of his own dissolution—it's absurdist sci-fi that refuses to settle into either comedy or tragedy, and most scouts would call it too weird to land. García Ibarra gets the darkest laugh by making the premise completely sincere, which is exactly the kind of subversive move that makes consensus taste look pedestrian.
The film positions itself deliberately in dialogue with Buñuel and Švankmajer—experimental cinema that trusts visual language over exposition—and the dissolve sequences carry the formal rigor of avant-garde work filtered through genre scaffolding. It's a considered piece that knows its lineage and doesn't apologize for the difficulty.
The singular choice here is the decision to keep the astronaut *speaking* during his own disintegration, voice and body arguing with each other, which transforms what could've been a straightforward surreal image into something genuinely unsettling and specific. That collision—rational explanation crumbling alongside the body—is the lift that makes 7 minutes feel like a complete argument.
Reviews
« Protoparticulas » m'a rendu hilare tout en me donnant le sentiment que son humour était malheureusement demeuré plutôt étranger au public présent. Absurde, délire, sursis et catharsis contre les turbines du rendement, du désespoir et de l'uniformité, « Protoparticulas » est un magma de tout cela.