Pablo's Winter

In Pablo's mind, "The more you listen to doctors, the sooner you die." Pablo is a grumpy septuagenarian who believes he is now living on borrowed time after suffering several heart attacks, so he pays no heed to the well-intentioned advice of his doctor and family. Filmed in the Spanish town of Almadén, looks like a polished art house film in terms of image and structure. The beautiful black-and-white cinematography and presentation of unremarkable events without commentary provide a striking character study. Although the protagonist comes across as blasé and is constantly complaining about how everything used to be better, he still succeeds in winning our sympathy. Because even though his attitude to life is completely negative, Pablo shows signs of having a dry sense of humor. We see him as he quibbles with his wife, who always makes him wait an eternity before she's ready to go out, or spends just as long convincing him to dance with her. Nonetheless, Pablo has his heart in the right place, as we see when he teaches his grandson to ride a bike, plays cards with friends, pulls a drowning sheep out of the water or daydreams about his past in the mercury mines.