Querida Alicia
2018 · 26m · España
Directed by Pablo Moreno
Genres: drama, historical
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic
In 1930s Oruro, Bolivia, recently widowed Alicia cannot support herself economically, and love for her son leads her down dark paths until she nearly loses everything.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's competent period drama with a moral descent, sure, but there's nothing here that makes me uncomfortable or challenges how I think—it's exactly the film the premise announces itself to be, which is precisely the problem.
Moreno builds a devastating historical portrait through deliberate restraint; the 1930s Bolivian setting isn't window dressing but a formal constraint that shapes every compositional choice, positioning this squarely in the lineage of rigorous social-realist cinema.
The film hinges on a single directional decision: keeping Alicia's face mostly obscured in the film's darkest moments, so her desperation lives in posture and shadow rather than close-up catharsis—it's the kind of restraint that costs nothing but changes everything.