The end title sequence of director Diego Sabanés’ film Mentiras Piadosas, based on Julio Cortázar’s short story “La Salud De Los Enfermos,” draws inspiration from shadow sculpture where the shadow, rather than the form, represents the object.

In this execution, title designers Juan Manuel Codó and Julian Martin use the shadow to represent the form by distilling the objects to shadows across wood grain and wallpaper; damask gone velvety like an old theater screen under a scratchy print. Credits, latched to keys, are subsequently spied in amorphous motion blur and bokeh. We are awash in piles of discarded charcoal type, floppy spines, lonely soles, banisters and hat racks and f-holes. All framework for a “portrait of a family capable of betraying what they are, while striving to attain what they aspire to be.” 

Art of the Title spoke with Juan Manuel Codó:

We started looking for references to principally represent ‘the lies’ which center the film. It occurred to us to use volumetric typography to make a disorganized thing that, with the passing light and shadow, would ‘tell the truth’ and show the titles. With director Diego Sabanés, we began adjusting this idea. He insisted on recreating the scenarios of the film so as to maintain the climax. The result is what you see, a mix of textures, parts of the house, and a game of shadows.