Manticore

Julian designs monsters for video games and keeps to himself. He rescues a neighbour's son from a fire in his building and is declared a hero. What nobody knows is that he lives with a suppressed attraction to children and wrestles with it alone. Carlos Vermut wrote and directed. Nacho Sanchez plays Julian, Zoe Stein the woman he grows close to. The film never goes near depiction. Its subject is not the act but the silent effort not to act; the camera stays on Julian's face and in his room. The manticore of the title is one of the creatures he designs and the film's own figure of speech: familiar piece by piece, monstrous as a whole. Vermut gives the viewer no ease. He withholds moral judgement without making the character likeable, and leaves you alone with your own reaction. Spanish critics backed it strongly; audiences divided. Who it is for: viewers of auteur cinema that handles disturbing material coldly. Who it is not for: anyone unwilling to go near the subject; the film offers no relief at any point.