el castigo (d. matías bize, w. coral cruz)

Bize’s chamber piece is what they might call whipsmart in the pages of TimeOut, if TimeOut still exists. A single shot sustained over 90 minutes, marked by the setting of the sun in a forest beside a main road, with the nagging tension of a lost child and a disintegrating marriage. The single shot film is perhaps the acme of low budget filmmaking, (cf La Casa Muda, Victoria etc), a skill which when well-executed demonstrates the Aristotelian power of cinema as a rival to the stage. El Castigo (The Punishment), takes place in a space which is perhaps no more than 500 square metres, where the action is occurring offstage. Ana has punished their 7 year old child by leaving him at the side of the road for two minutes, after he nearly caused a crash. When they come back the child is missing. With this simple premise, the film dissects her and Mateo’s marriage, and the possible collapse of their comfortable lives. It’s beautifully acted by Antonia Zegers and Néstor Cantillana, and, as is necessary, brilliantly filmed by Gabriel Diaz. In a medium which so often rewards those who do the flashy things well, doing the simple things well becomes the mark of a bold sensibility, prepared to swim against the tide.