El armario

With few means at his disposal, but with powerful black & white photography, impudent improvisations and a great feeling for the beauty of decay, Gustavo Corrado made his first film as a social-surrealist manifesto. An elderly, disconsolate and unemployed man is kicked out of the scruffy lodging house where he has lived for years. With all he possesses, a large cupboard from his grandmother’s time, he moves to a deserted factory site. The wardrobe becomes his ultimate shelter. He shuts himself up in his cupboard with the intention of dying there. A young woman, also homeless, finds him just in time. She moves in to keep him company. For as long as it lasts they live in a small paradise. In the meantime close by hundreds of workers lose their jobs because the factory has to close its gates. The old man and the young woman aren’t doing too badly in their old cupboard. Until a tragic and unexpected event makes their paths separate. Gustavo Corrado made a striking début film with El armario (the cupboard), in which the absurd is combined with the pain of life. He looks tenderly at a friendship between two people from different generations, but with a common status. The two outcasts create an autonomous zone in a space no larger than a cupboard. Their dwelling awakens amazement but also aggressions.