Emergency Exit is the latest film directed by Lluís Miñarro, who is primarily known as a producer of films directed by Albert Serra, Manoel de Oliveira, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. He was also the co-producer of Ainhoa Rodríguez’s brilliant first feature, Mighty Flash (Destello bravio 2021). His latest feature is primarily set on a bus where we follow, or at least observe, the different passengers. It’s clear from the outset that this is not just any regular bus. In one of the first scenes, we witness the 1969 Pegaso bus appear seemingly out of nowhere. Once the trip begins, the artifice is obvious, and the projection scenes are not there to fool anyone.
Fourteen people and a goat arrive to enter the bus for a trip that supposedly takes place on the Canary Island of Tenerife, but where the actual setting is imaginative. Among the passengers, we meet a priest with issues (Oriol Plà), an actress (Marisa Paredes), two divas (Arielle Dombasle and Myriam Mézières), and a handsome man (Jhonathan Burdock) who might be the embodiment of Eros, at least in some passengers’ minds. Naomi Kawase’s name can be added to the list of directors whose movies Miñarro has produced. The film in question was Still the Water (2014). Kawase appears in the film, and like other cast members, plays a version of herself. References to her oeuvre comes from The Mourning Forest.
Where is the Emergency Exit?
One of the travellers on the bus is a filmmaker (Albert Plá), and considering how strongly the film plays with meta-aspects, he might be the main character. He talks about cinema with the passengers and he also has voice-overs. The two divas discuss their experiences throughout their careers, and Miñarro, who also wrote the script, generously sprinkles cinematic references throughout the film. The film’s highlight might be the scene where Marisa Paredes’ character looks through old photos. All of them depict directors that Paredes worked with, and genuinely great ones such as Raoul Ruiz, Manoel de Oliveira, and Arturo Ripstein—a poignant reminder of what cinema once was.
That scene alone makes the film worth seeing. The cinematography by Jimmy Gimferrer is colourful, but not as expressive as it could have been. Gimferrer also lensed Alberto Serra’s The Story of my Death (2013), incidentally another Miñarro production. In many ways, Emergency Exit is less than the sum of its individually attractive parts. Even with its brisk 96-minute running time, there are still lulls, not only in the narrative but in the film as a whole. It will probably mostly be remembered as Marisa Paredes’ last of her 123 movie acting credits.
Emergency Exit was screened in the Rebels With a Cause section of the 2025 Black Nights Film Festival.
