Éramos pocos

Two guys - a father and a son - are lost when the woman of the house disappears. Why the mother left isn't explained. However, one thing is for sure: these guys need to learn a few things. The husband doesn't even know where is socks are, so how is he or his son going to manage an apartment?

They quickly spring into action, going to a nursing home and looking up a long-lost relative: his mother-in-law. Hey, maybe she'd rather be in our place and can run it, they think.

To their surprise, the mother-in-law is almost "too good to be true." She is a great cook, never complains. Does everything for them. It's unbelievable. Something isn't right and one of the men is puzzled....but why rock the boat?

One day the husband calls his wife to tell her about how good her mother-in-law is acting, and how he's sorry he recommended she go into a nursing home. He winds up getting a big surprise. Another surprise is how he winds up handling the first surprise.

Overall, despite the twist at the end, it's nothing extraordinary, film-wise, to warrant an Academy Award nomination, but these days it doesn't take much.

In the early morning a woman fed up with her husband and son walks out on them. When we see why we can't blame her. They are both chauvinist slobs incapable of caring for themselves. Realizing this they retrieve the wife's mother from a nursing home and feigning love and concern soon have her assuming the same indentured status that caused her daughter to flee. It turns out however that they also may have been duped.

Eramous Pocos is a well acted little gem of a comedy told soberly in a low key manner. It's stark imagery bathed in ominous lighting drips with a casually foreboding ambiance and mystery that contributes to the film's ambiguous demeanor. Director Borgea Kobeaga puts great care and detail into every shot, creating an impressive visual suspense to advance the storey line and bring about its ironically comic conclusion. It's a masterwork of style in miniature.

The film begins with a man awakening to discover that his wife has left him. You are unsure exactly why, but judging how sloppy this man and his son were, you figure she probably just couldn't take this any more! These guys are really lost without a wife/house keeper and come up with the brilliant idea of taking the husband's mother-in-law out of the retirement home to care for them. Though they haven't seen each other in years, she agrees to come home and is immediately a hit. The house is cleaned, groceries are bought and she's a terrific hit--and then comes the wonderful punchline!

Well written, directed and produced--this Spanish short film is a lovely and funny film. It's really too bad that the 2006 Oscars were so competitive that year--else-wise, this one might have won. By the way, the winner was WEST BANK STORY--a film I absolutely adored.

These two films and many more are included on the DVD "A Collection of 2006 Academy Award Nominated Short Films" and is well worth buying because it is jam-packed full of 13 wonderful shorts.