The Nest

Jaime de Armiñán's film, set near Salamanca, follows what passes between a sixty year old widower and a thirteen year old child. Alejandro is wealthy and alone, filling his days with music, chess and his shotgun. Goyita is a policeman's daughter with a naturalist's curiosity, and it is she who arranges to meet him. The film frames the relationship as platonic and gives room to Alejandro saying he is living for the first time in years, but it does not hide that this is a grown man and a child, nor that the village is talking. That discomfort is the film's own material. Ana Torrent and Héctor Alterio lead it, and it was nominated for the Academy Award for best foreign language film.