El maquinista (2004)

English title: The Machinist.
Synopsis: A blue-collar worker has had insomnia for a year now. Strange things start happening to him, such as seeing a person whose existence everyone else denies.
Appraisal: This is ultimately silly as a construction, building up mystery that it never intended to solve in the first place, a characteristic that appears to be very fashionable at the moment in films. Directorially the film is an achievement, with a visual style that matches exactly what the story is asking. Taken individually, there are several sequences that are interesting and strong. It is too bad that, as I said, the approach is misguided, leading the audience to expect a complex explanation that never comes -- the one that is provided is perhaps an explanation for the protagonist's mental state, but places much of what happened earlier under the label 'hallucination', which is a very easy thing to do. Furthermore, I don't understand how the alleged solution to the protagonist's problem is a solution at all.
Rating: 45