EL ESPEJISMO

A word from the selection committee : 

You will have to wait until the last few minutes of the film before it perhaps reveals one of its most obvious clues; the retro-futurist synthesisers of the Pet Shop Boys’ A Different Point of View ring out and the credits begin to roll; and if there was any doubt that this was all a matter of perception, the Brits help us realise: yes, but whose perception is it? Perhaps we then should remember that, from the beginning of the story, we are told that a story that is contradicted and unsupported by evidence can only be one thing; a dream. 

Indeed, if Bingham Bryant seems to apply a dreamlike logic to his storytelling (stories within stories, or rather stories unfolding like stairs, in keeping with San Sebastian’s topography, which is of vital importance here – digressions, ellipses, and loops), we should note, first, that it never turns into a nightmare (which may come as a surprise in an adaptation of Edogawa Ranpo), and, second, that the mise-en-scène, by contrast, seems intent on remaining crystal-clear, as though it were determined to uncover the story’s mirages through the precision of each frame and the duration of the shots. We are then ushered in to truly see what is most certainly untrue.

Traduction : Aurore Kahan