Spain · 2025 · R (18+) · 93 min · Spanish with English subtitles
“The world is a wonderful stage, but has a deplorable cast,” growls an ominous owl in Decorado, nodding to Oscar Wilde. The film’s cast includes a pyromaniac chicken, a self-hating mermaid, a pack of homeless rats, and other critters in various states of spiritual unease. In the middle of it all is Arnold, an unemployed, middle-aged mouse, who suspects that the world around him is somehow unreal.
Welcome to the inimitable cinematic universe of Alberto Vázquez, Spain’s master ironist. Decorado expands his Goya-winning short of the same name (2016); the film’s biting satire of late capitalism and its many discontents feels no less relevant today than it did a decade ago. As always, Vázquez wrong-foots us with his cutesy characters, through which he speaks about the most adult subjects, including drugs, poverty, and the stultifying effects of consumerism. The film is also an unusually multi-faceted exploration of mental ill health, including the sense of derealization that afflicts poor Arnold.
Richly imaginative and viciously funny, Decorado plays like a hallucinatory retelling of The Truman Show from the underground. It confirms Vázquez as one of the most distinctive – and darkly entertaining – voices in world animation.
