Mar Infinito

On the surface, "Mar Infinito" seems to be a brooding boy-meets-girl story set in a vaguely dystopian future in which humans are increasingly abandoning Earth in favor of building a new civilization on some remote planet, and the only ones left behind are either deemed unfit or just too stubborn to leave. The main character spends most of his waking hours tinkering with a "The Matrix"-like array of computer equipment and wishing he could join the exodus to an exciting new world, while in his dreams, he's already there. Some background clues suggest that it's actually the other way around, but it really doesn't matter because this isn't so much a narrative film as it is...what, exactly? A commentary on the plight of less-developed countries facing a demographic crisis as their inhabitants search for better fortunes elsewhere? A meditation on life, the universe, and everything? There may be message behind the lengthy juxtaposed shots of starfields and oceans, along with the empty cityscapes that have become almost obligatory in COVID-era cinema, but it remains just out of reach.