Synopsis

The sun shines among the trees, with a beautiful lady looking back and smiling.In an office building, Marc Delgado (Quim Gutiérrez), stares at the mess. He picks up some food and then looks out of the window, to some burning bridges in downtown Barcelona. Somebody tells him that he needs to go to the basement. There, they are trying to build a tunnel out of the building with inadequate tools. Marc gets so frenzy when he thinks about his girlfriend, that he's about to make everything tumble down. Finally, they reach the next building: it's an empty underground tunnel, but with some lights on. Later on, Marc joins the queue to get some food. There, he notices a man with a GPS in his backpack.The man is Enrique (José Coronado), who tells Marc that they will talk later if he stays silent now.Flashback to the same office building working, with plenty of workers pushing papers. Enrique is nicknamed "The Terminator" behind his back, because he's there to fire people. He calls Mark to his office. Mark is a computer engineer who has to design the security protocol of a new product the company are designing. The work is late. Marc says that it's a complex matter, and that if he doesn't his job well and carefully, there'll be trouble for years and years to come. Enrique replies that the company is having problems, that's why he's there. If the company were profitable, he wouldn't have been called on to begin with. Enrique insists that the security protocol must be ready at the end of the month. Marc has to work late at night, but the protocol isn't working. He calls his girlfriend Julia (Marta Etura), who works at a puppet shop in a shiny shopping center. Andrea (Leticia Dolera) tries to convince her to go out and have fun, to no avail. Another mistake in the program.Marc goes home by tube, knackered out. He's about to sleep while standing. Finally, he reaches home. The neighbour opposite home looks at him. Marc arrives home and smiles when he sees Julia painting another puppet. Marc is afraid of losing his job, and that's his reason for not wanting to have a child with Julia. He suffers from insomnia. At 3:30 in the morning, he gets up to watch the news. The Hekla volcano is active, and it's affecting all the airflight in Europe. In a video, Greg Lafferty (Robert Donaldson), a Canadian teenager, says that his father can't believe him that he couldn't leave his room. Dad thought he just hadn't wanted to leave the room for six months. He picks up a gun and commits suicide. Many workers comment on the news. Marc is the only one who has noticed that Perico has not showered or changed his clothes in a while, meaning that he probably got fired.We come back at the present, with mess and litter all over the building. Marc and Enrique talk in private. Marc wants to search for Julia. He threatens Enrique with telling the rest, but he doesn't look impressed. Marc has a torch, some gas, a penknife, all stolen from Rovira (Pere Ventura). At first, Enrique tells him that he's not interested in getting those items from Marc, but he doesn't want anybody to know that he still has the GPS, as those in the mobile phones don't work at all. Now we know that they have been in the building for three months. Enrique accepts the deal.They start their way on the subway, following the typical leaflet with the station map. Lights flicker. A demented man is showing off an alive rat. Onlookers laugh at them when they speed up at the sound of gunshots. They reach a chaotic tube station crammed with people. It looks like the law of the jungle. A young boy steals the GPS from Enrique. He and Marc fun after him. The boy does parkouring, and creates a small fire on his way out.They say goodbye. The brother of the guy doesn't want to return the backpack. Javier (Isak Férriz), an ex-cop, threatens them with a gun. Enrique fights with him while Marc gets the backpack. Enrique kills Javier and gets his gun. The friends of Javi run after Marc - who has finally recovered the backpack - and Enrique. Enrique has hurt his hand. The screen is broken, but it still works. In spite of the gun, Enrique will keep the deal.Back at 7:00,when a radio DJ (Jordi Basté) is making a substitution. Marc leaves for work, and realises something strange at the nosy neighbour's flat. The door is open and he enters. He's kept bags and bags of rubbish in his flat. He chokes on the disgusting stink. The neighbour attacks him with a knife, and admits that he hasn't left the building in months. He feels he can't, and will be thought crazy by anyone he tells him. At the office, two security officers (Xavi Lite and Lolo Herrero) put him out. Rovira has been sleeping for days in the building; he fights not to be pushed out. Rovira dies as soon as he's pushed out. Somebody calls for an ambulance, Marc tells them to pull him inside and Rovira stops convulsing. It's too late: Rovira is dead. Marc looks at Enrique accusingly. Marc looks at Rovira's things, hidden in a cabinet. Back home, Julia hugs Marc in the balcony. They stare at the city. Marc has noticed that there are many closed shops, people who won't go to work. Julia can't understand him. Marc tells her about the death of Rovira in his arm from a heart attack. Marc admits that he didn't really know him either.When he wakes up, Marc thinks that Enrique has left him. Rats are eaten the corpse of a dead man. Enrique won't tell what he wants to do at the Olympic city. He's got some seeds in a bag. They reach a gutter conduct in the subway, which should take them to the sewer system.Outside, animals run wild among the many abandoned cars. The camera pulls down to the sewers, where Marc and Enrique are crawling. They count forty steps, and they think that they are below Marc's building. Enrique shoots the campsite gas to create an explosion. The first time, he fails. The noise deafens them for a while. Enrique can't shoot straight because of his hurt hand. Marc shoots and fails as well, bleeding from the ears. The second time, he succeeds, and everything goes off. Marc looks paralized, but he recovers soon. There are people all over the place in the building. They crack the door open because Julia was not there. A man shouts that she left. There is a family of foreign-looking people (Abdelatif Hwidar the father, Farah Hamed the wife and Lily Morett the daughter). They haven't seen Julia ever. Marc and Enrique look around. The family hunt pigeons. Enrique picks the unexploded seeds from a bag of microwave popcorn. Enrique gets a kitchen knife. Marc sees the horror puppet and realises that Julia was pregnant when he sees the ultrasound scan of the foetus.Back at Marc and Julia watching the news of the first dead people from what it's now called "The Panic". A government spokesperson (Francesc Pagès) tells people that they are working on it, and that people should go to work. It's a global epidemic. Julia is angry with him because she thinks that the Panic is just another of his excuses not to marry her and have children with her. Marc goes to work: very few people on the streets and on the underground. Marc is still angry when he arrives to his office. In a TV debate, nobody really knows what they're talking about: aseptic modern life, a biological agent... Andrea tells Marc that Julia doesn't want to speak with him. Marc shouts to her on the phone. Marc wants to leave the building to go and call on Julia, but as soon as he steps out, he gets dizzy and has to go inside fast. He checks it while still on the floor, but his mobile phone doesn't work. He imagines Julia crying, holding the scan picture.It rains outside, and they pick some water, putting it into buckets. Everybody tries to pick the water. The sewer system gets flooded. Everybody fills bottles, pots and pans. Enrique and Marc leave the flat.Enrique calls off their deal: he'd agreed to go with him to that flat. "This is not a gynkana in which we walk all over Barcelona until we found her." Enrique says that Julia may be dead, and that the baby may be lost anyway. In the ensuing fight, they lose the torch. Now, we learn that Enrique wants to find his father. Together again, they find a lighter in a church. They start a bonfire. They try to defend themselves from a bear with spikes. Marc hesitates: should he run away or should he help Enrique, who has fallen to the floor and is about to be eaten by the bear. They are trapped, because they are getting closer to the menacing door. The bear gets impalled when it falls on top of Marc. They laugh when they see an id sign from the Barcelona zoo. That night, they dine cooked bear meat.Enrique tells that, once, he went to an energy company, and the HHRR manager had been left dead in his office for four days, without nobody missing him either at home or at work. Marc admits that he was afraid of having children. Enrique mentions that in Australia, the scientists had found a tribe of nomads, so he still has hopes of humanity surviving, however precariously.With torches, they walk on. they find another group of survivors. A woman (Momo Ballesteros) asks for the fire to light a cigarette. The lady says that the hospital were Enrique's father was has burned down, but that may be a rumour, adds a man (Albert Prat). Enrique runs like crazy to the rooftop, and sees the flames and the smoke. As his father was his only relative alive, Enrique falls into desperation. He doesn't believe his father has survived, because he was incubated in a coma in the fifth floor. Enrique thrust a chair against the glass window. Marc prevents him from jumping off, and tells him that he still needs him. Enrique gives Marc the seeds he's gathered. Enrique lights a cigarette and tells Marc to go and save his baby.Marc goes on his own. He arrives to the Gran Vía shopping center, to the parking. Everything is in disarray in the second floor of the parking. Dead people everywhere, but there are some alive people staring at him who hide when he looks. Marc arrives to the puppet shop. There is the dead body of an elderly lady hidden behind a desk. He looks at the remaining paperwork, and throws it to the floor and cries in frustration. In a mirror, he finds scribbled "We can't leave; We are trapped in the supermarket. Andrea"A man tells him that he should go back to his floor, or ask there whether there's that girl there. Marc shows him a picture of Julia, telling him that she's pregnant. A female girl tells him that he's gonna check. Some savage-looking people jump over the barricade. The man shouts that it's an ambush. Marc jumps the barricade as well, shouting "Julia, Julia".Marc finds Andrea, who doesn't know where Julia is. Andrea inquires about her mother. Andrea leads him outside. A burning woodplunk falls between them too. Marc tells Andrea to try and step outside. However, debris falls on her, killing her. A savage-looking man attacks Marc and is about to stab him to death, when Enrique prevents it. Enrique tells Marc that he's right, he needs him. Enrique can't find the courage to kill the demented savage teenager, who wounds Enrique. He doesn't admit to be hurt, and tells Marc to move on before the shopping center falls down. The enter the cinema.Marc thinks that Julia is in the building opposite. Marc notices Julia in the window opposite him. Julia is heavily pregnant. They laugh and see each other.Marc looks for Enrique, who's sat down in a cinema chair. Marc tries to stop the bleeding. Enrique tells him to stop helping him: he wants to die. Enrique tells him to run and cross the street to meet Julia. Marc is unsure of himself. Enrique tells him to stop sobbing and grow up. Enrique dies.Marc tries to find strength looking at the bag of seeds. He opens the door and steps outside; tries to concentrate and walks on. Breathing deeply, tries not to give in to the panic. He walks step by step crossing through thezebra crossing. He bleeds from an ear but walks on. He feels dizzy and thinks of Julia, smiling enticingly to him in a shiny day. His eyes bleed from the inside. He falls down but steps up and walks some more. When he finally passes out, he sees Julia going out of the building and caressing him. They are inside Julia's new building.some time later, Julia gives birth to a baby in a room of that home. Marc has created a greenhouse with tomatoes, cucumbers... They are prepared to get rainwater when the child starts walking. The baby learns to walk, and is not afraid to leave the building to play football, their parents inside.When the boy is a young teenager, a group of teenagers come to take him away with them. The young teenager looks at his parents, who are left inside the building hugging each other. Outside, vegetation has started to grow between the buildings. The young group leaves.

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Aug 4, 2023 at 10:58 AM