The Windmill of Death
32m · Portugal
Directed by George Daniell
Genres: adventure, comedy, experimental
Tones: absurdist, melancholic, surreal
Two brothers crossing the Portuguese countryside pick up a third traveler after spotting a missing-person sign. They drift through World Cup nostalgia, nicknames, and old heartbreaks.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Thirty-two minutes of two brothers and a stranger pretending the missing-person sign isn't the plot. That's exactly the kind of ragged anti-narrative discipline I'll defend in any room.
Daniell returning to Jarmuschian negative-space road poetry with a missing-person sign as ignored MacGuffin is exactly the kind of refusal-of-plot I admire when held confidently. With him on this one.
A 32-minute Portuguese countryside drift with brothers named Dead Eye and Square Hands picking up a missing-person sign and barely investigating it — Daniell's negative-space road-poem mode is a real signature. Soccer-nostalgia bench scenes are the texture I want.
Reviews
a playfully ragged DIY adventure film filled with surreal flourishes and lo-fi style points