Síntomas
2014 · 6m · España
Directed by Jon Viar
Genres: drama, mystery, thriller
Tones: contemplative, tense
A man goes to the consultation of a psychoanalyst to talk about a traumatic experience that he has not managed to overcome; the doctor asks him about the symptoms he presents, but, little by little, the patient reveals surprising details about the event that traumatized him.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The psychoanalyst-patient setup feels like it's heading somewhere predictable—until it absolutely isn't—but the film's too invested in unveiling its twist to actually subvert the form; it wants you to gasp, not rethink what therapy cinema can do.
Viar understands the Hitchcockian architecture of revelation: each question from the doctor is a carefully placed cut in the narrative fabric, and the clinical frame of the therapy room becomes formal permission to strip away layers of a traumatic secret with surgical precision.
The entire film pivots on a single choice—how the camera holds on the patient's face during his confession—that shifts from clinical detachment to complicity, turning the therapy session into something far more morally ambiguous than the premise suggests.