Capicúa

There are some films out there so dependent on the way they blindside the viewer that it's very difficult to review them without including spoilers. Capicúa is one such, but fortunately it has other admirable qualities that deserve to be talked about.

Crisply shot, initially within the stark interior of a nursing home, this smart little film explores the connection between old age and childhood. Its title translates into English as 'palindrome', giving us a sense of individual lives as marked by symmetricality rather than decline. Like most paid carers, it keeps a professional distance from its elderly subjects, sympathetic but never too personal. There's a degree of othering but it is never patronising. Its focus is on need, facilitation and respect, rather than intimacy, and as such it avoids the risk of exploitation.

Alongside its narrative, the film makes thoughtful use of visual imagery to draw comparisons. We observe the complexity, for some, of what most people might consider simple tasks. We see the elderly patients, many of them wheelchair users, dwarfed by the institution's massive windows. Their smallness in this context not only maks them childlike - it also emphasises their vulnerability, the ease with which they can be overlooked by the rest of the world.

At the heart of the film's comparison is a question: why do we work so hard to help the young develop, then overlook the needs of the elderly when they find themselves in a similar place? The film's narrator is straightforward, practical, and we see dedicated care staff who will do their job regardless, but there is still a challenge here. There is also a celebration of human potential.

Watch it below