After his excellent time-travel film Timecrimes, Nacho Vigalondo has changed things up for his next project, Extraterrestrial. I had the chance to check it out at TIFF (review here), where I had fun with the comedic elements, as this film is much more about relationships than science-fiction. The ending is muddled and unsatisfying, but the journey is a fun one.

We have a new trailer today (via Bleeding Cool) which provides our first subtitled look at the film for English-language audiences. It does a good job at conveying the best elements, the back-and-forth relationship with our male lead and the female, whose house he wakes up in. Check it out below for the film starring Julian Villagran, Michelle Jenner, Raul Cimas, Carlos Areces and Miguel Noguera.

Plot:

Strangers Julio (Julián Villagrán) and Julia (Michelle Jenner) wake up beside one another in Julia’s apartment, groggy, hun­gover and unsure how they met. Julia is about to send Julio on his way when both notice the uncanny silence gripping Julia’s downtown neighbourhood. Looking out the window, they see Madrid’s skyline dot­ted with enormous spaceships. The only other person left in the building is Julia’s fawning and somewhat creepy neighbour, Ángel (Carlos Areces), who explains that there’s been an exodus of people flee­ing the city. When Julia’s boyfriend Tipo (Miguel Noguera) shows up — having now shifted into survivalist mode — the dynam­ics between the four reach heady extremes. Attempting to hide their apparent one-night stand, Julia and Julio convince Tipo that Ángel is an alien and must be ejected.

As the narrative unfolds, the spaceships maintain their immobile, sphinx-like pres­ence. The only television station still on the air reports that there are similar space-crafts stationed in cities around the world; none have made any attempts at contact. Meanwhile, as the claustrophobic atmo­sphere in the apartment increases, decisions are made about who stays, who goes and who gets the girl.

Extraterrestrial doesn’t have US distribution yet, but arrives next month in Spain.

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