A middle-aged woman (Cachito Noguera) receives a telephone call from her son, and it does not go well as she shouts at him down the line and accuses him of wasting her money. She then settles down at the table that evening to do a jigsaw puzzle, but as she grows more captivated with it, she is unaware of the horror that awaits...
Jigsaw puzzles haven't had a prominent influence on the world of cinema, but here Spanish writer and director Davide Melini attempted to make one the centre of a five minute horror. In short films, the most celebrated of these puzzles is the one in that old Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy comedy where a wedding is delayed by the guests becoming obsessed with completing one, and the strange hold they can have is also highlighted in this.
In fact, so entranced with the puzzle is the leading lady that it seems to make her unaware that her life is in danger until it's too late. The trouble with this short is that, well, it's too short, we never get to find out anything much about the woman or really why she meets the end she does, and it's all very abrupt.
Melini works up some fancy camera moves to hold your attention, and there are plenty of spooky noises on the soundtrack for atmosphere, though you get the feeling that if you blink you'll have missed something important. It's well put together on a low budget, but the main character's fate seems almost arbritrary and the whole thing comes across as a clip of a setpiece in a larger work. Still, it's not such a bad thing to be left wanting more from something this brief. Music by Visioni Gotiche.
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