Watching Miguel Andrade’s short film, it’s almost impossible not to think of one of the paradoxes that defines surrealist art. If dreaming is an escape from reality and, at the same time, dreaming is a way of understanding ourselves and decoding our own identity, then isn’t the dream truer than reality itself? Indeed, ‘Umbral‘ is a paradoxical short film, in the sense that it precisely articulates a plunge into a character’s subconscious to explore the logic of the illogic that lies behind the defining gestures of a human destiny. Starting from the pretext of a groundbreaking discovery that could trace the traumatic causes in the soul of a murderer, this project is more than a clever exercise of imagination. It is a cinematic feast, perfect for viewers looking for a provocative and refined experience.
If a murderer is, at heart, a wounded child, then who can really be accused of murder? Could detecting the trauma that triggered the killer instinct solve anything? Or prevent a future catastrophe? This is dense film whose complexity can sometimes be inhibiting. But the formula adopted by Miguel Andrade is underpinned by a well-thought-out structural coherence, much to the delight of cinephiles who will be pleased to discover affinities with the baroque of Peter Greenaway’s films or the experimentalism of films like ‘Dogville’ or ‘Mulholland Drive’. Theatricality serves as a constant, or more precisely, a unifying thread throughout this vivid, chaotic, and labyrinthine journey into the soul. In the same way, the characters’ discourse, at times quite ostentatiously poetic, is combined with acting variations on the same script. Everything unfolds like a matryoshka doll, with dreams consuming reality and reality consuming dreams, all wrapped in the form of a detective investigation that ultimately leads the spectator to the answer. Part thriller, part intimate drama, and part cinematic-theatrical experiment where the absurd meets surrealist vibes, ‘Umbral’ is a short film that captivates and undoubtedly rewards the patience of watching it again and again.
