Recoprem 10 mg
2012 · 17m · España
Directed by Fernando Sánchez
Genres: drama, romance, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Unable to overcome his breakup with Lucía, Fran undergoes experimental treatment with Recoprem 10 mg, a drug that intensifies his memories so he can confront them faster, just as a new girl, Paula, enters his life.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A sci-fi breakup story could've been precious, but Sánchez actually commits to the weird logic—using the drug not as narrative shortcut but as permission to let memory become formally unreliable, which is the opposite of what most filmmakers would do.
The film sits productively between Kaufman's metaphysical neurosis and Spanish arthouse tradition, deploying surrealism with restraint; the editing's refusal to clarify whether we're in drug-state or memory proves formally more sophisticated than the premise alone suggests.
The decision to let Fran's memories physically overlap and fragment in the same frame—rather than cutting between them—transforms a familiar emotional premise into something tactile and disorienting; that single compositional choice makes the 17 minutes feel like a complete invention.