The locked-room mystery has been a subgenre of detective fiction for well over a century with authors from John Dickson Carr to Agatha Christie setting up seemingly impossible crimes that imply almost supernatural intervention. César Fernández Ardavín’s aptly named Crimen imposible? (US: Impossible Crime), based on his own original story, is a literal interpretation of the premise: a celebrated writer’s (Gérard Tichy) dead body is found alone and shot in the back inside an apartment locked from the inside. Inspector Alberto Bassano (José Suárez) arrives to lead the investigation, which involves interrogating a half-dozen suspects, including building doorman Antonio (Félix Fernández), lovelorn young neighbor María (Silvia Morgan), and, he comes to learn, Bassano’s own girlfriend Isabel (Nani Fernández). Each suspect recounts key moments through flashbacks, sometimes false ones stolen from the victim’s fiction, romanticized through sensory evocation despite the action rarely leaving the apartment building. The film is low-budget, high-craftsmanship, Ardavín framing shots meticulously and using low-key lighting, mirror reflections, Venetian blinds, moonlight, overhead shots, and diegetic mood music to establish brilliant atmosphere, especially to distinguish between past and present, real and unreal. Legend has it Francisco Franco compelled the producers to append a question mark onto the Spanish title so as not to imply that there was a crime his police brigade couldn’t solve.