10.000 Km (Carlos Marques-Marcet, 2014) : Spain

Reviewed by Kate Michael. Viewed at the Chinese 2 Theater, Hollywood.

10.000 Km Has been my favorite film screened at AFIfest thus far. Directed by Carlos Marques-Marcet, 10.000 Km takes us inside the intimate apartment space of two lovers. In this midst of Sergi and Alex’s happy, loving relationship with the intention of having a child, Alex is given a year long residency in Los Angeles, 10,000 Km away from her home with Sergi in Barcelona. What follows is an ultra-real example of what sometimes happens when two people in love find themselves on two very different paths.

Though Carlos Marques-Marcet makes his directing debut in this film, he takes on many technical challenges and utilizes his many years spent in film school. The film starts with a twenty three minute long scene, the most intimate scene in the movie, that was shot on the first day of shooting. While it forced actors Natalia Tena and David Verdaguer to get comfortable and establish chemistry quickly, the emotional intensity necessary to carry the scene must have seemed no small task. Establishing the bond between Sergi and Alex quickly is really what hooks the audience and draws them in. Shot in two very small apartments in two different locations, the audience remains in these small spaces almost exclusively throughout the film. Another challenge to shooting was the film’s plentiful use of video chats. These video chats were shot live, thus Marcet had several cameras rolling at once in order to avoid multiple takes and get each angle he wanted.

Most storylines have a conflict, or bump in the road, so to speak. What Marcet manages to do is make the whole film feel like one of these bumps in the road, largely what makes the film so realistic and keeps the audience’s attention. The tension and suspense is often cut with clever, humorous lines in the script again adding to the reality that, in relationships, it’s never all good or all bad. The amount of time Sergi and Alex spend apart is marked at the beginning of each new scene with the numbered day printed across the bottom of the screen. The repetition and monotony of this further helps the audience related to the slow passing of this period in time.

Already a winner of several awards including the Special Jury Prize at SXSW, Best Film and Best Actress at the Malaga Film Festival, this film is going places. Marcet, having a deep appreciation for Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, would have made him proud with this film. Like Bergman did so many times, Marcet has created a raw, bare bones look at love and relationships that every adult can relate to in one way or another. If you believe romance is overly idealized in movies and crave something more reality based and even more touching, see this film.