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Ruth Caudel‘s Petit Mal a very intimate look into the lives of three women who have decided to stay together and live under the complicated dynamics of a relationship. Caudeli, who works as a writer/director/actress on the film, manages to capture the sonics of absence in a brutally honest film that couldn’t have been easy to make given that it’s very real and inspired by her life and the lives of the performers. Varón Silvia and Ana María Otálora. It’s a great representation of something possible, but those levels of intimacy and the materialization of grief aren’t easy to achieve when you’re behind the camera and telling a story that doesn’t represent absolute happiness.

However, Caudel has no intention but to follow his instincts to realize his own relationship and make an ultimately sad film. Petit Mal is a complex study of an emotional breakdown that will likely break your heart for lack of answers, but it’s also a fascinating depiction of the dynamics of a very human relationship that aren’t often depicted in movies.

Petit Mal it is told around a center of sadness and conflicting absences. When Laia leaves, she does so to follow a dream, but it seems unnecessary. He is the center of a group, the glue that holds them together. He is not aware of his power, he just follows himself.

When he leaves, Marti and Anto live in a black and white world of chaos and dissonance. Their days are disordered, they sleep during the day and cry at night. They live only to call Laia and remind her of them and all she left behind. The disconnect is obvious and hurtful. Laia seems to find something else in her experiment. When she cries with longing and longing, her girlfriends see only the opposite. He lost them.

In Petit Mal, the main conflict is slowly resolved in the third act. And the movie actually goes against the wall, but in a very peaceful, almost meditative way. There is nothing spectacular about how the two women left behind see the reality of absence and where it takes them. It doesn’t have to be that way. When they look at each other, all they see is the answer they don’t want to let into their lives: they’ve run out of main fuel and need to find something else to lift them up.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is clear that Marti and Anto do not connect at first without the essential element that holds the throuple together. But in the emotional void, amidst tears and sadness, they inevitably fall into the abyss of harsh truth and reality. And they cannot even mention and admit this result to each other. Their fear is all too palpable. Yes, their lives are colorful again, but maybe Laia isn’t the reason or the fuel. Maybe it’s just a memory, a reminder that love can be found in the strangest, most unlikely places.

After the shocking ending, many questions remain. Essential questions about the future. Laia’s look might give a certain answer, but Caudeli has no intention of revealing what stands in their way. Will they stay together amid mistrust? Do they learn how to work in a trio? Will they be happy in the end?

But at least the credits can heal the mark the movie left on you. Stick around and you’ll be smiling and your heart full after an emotionally draining movie.

Founder of Screentology. Member of OFCS. RT rated critic
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