Reflejo
2020 · 11m · España
Directed by Juan Carlos Mostaza
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Clara is a 10-year-old girl with a distorted vision of reality; she will fall into a well from which she will only be able to get out with effort and the help of those around her.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Reflejo plays it a little too safe with the metaphor—distorted reality, a child in a well, the symbolic rescue—it's all exactly what you'd expect a surreal coming-of-age to do. The premise wants to subvert but ends up confirming every gentle-melancholy instinct.
Mostaza situates this clearly in the lineage of magical-realist child narratives, and the formal control is evident: the visual distortion as narrative device, the well as both literal and psychological space, the measured pacing that respects the tradition. A competent entry in a well-established mode.
That distorted-vision technique—the way reality bends visually rather than just thematically—is the film's entire architecture, and it's the kind of deliberate visual choice that either justifies an 11-minute runtime or wastes it; Mostaza commits hard enough that you believe it.