Enrique López Lavigne says that the first time he appeared before Quentin Tarantino, the director of Érase once in ... Hollywood pointed his finger and snapped: «If you are as you say Spanish and film producer, what do you do that are you not working with Chicho Ibáñez Serrador? Maybe that was the beginning of everything. That or the simple nostalgia, feigned or not, of a time in which, as Álex de la Iglesia points out, the spectator sought to be surprised, he wanted new emotions and feelings. That or the melancholy for a past in which it was possible to combine without (or with) the greatest complication the talent of the author with the taste of the public. That or the simple and bitter certainty that few as prone as the Spaniards to despise what they ignore and, already put, be defined by the exact size of their prejudices. And so.
But what are we talking about? Basically, what the documentary Wild Session is about, directed by Paco Limón and Julio César Sánchez and produced by the man who met Tarantino. The film, just presented at the Sitges Festival, reviews without shame or apprehension what the exploitation was from the 60s to the 80s. We talked about that way of making cinema linked first to the double-session neighborhood halls and then to the video clubs. From the western ( spaghetti or chorizo ) to terror through the quinqui thriller or erotic comedies, everything spoke (and speaks) of us.
"We claim," the directors say almost in chorus, "that Spanish cinema unfairly defenestrated. It was a cinema that demanded rebellious filmmakers and not at all domesticated in the fight against censorship, against American competition and able to read the mind to their audience ». And, indeed, a tape with an almost crossed spirit is applied to them.
Who remembers Eugenio Martín now? How many times did you need to justify Chicho Ibáñez Serrador or Jesús Franco when they received the Goya of honor? And what about the Romero-Marchent brothers? And Armando Ossorio, Paul Naschy or Carlos Aured? Who is able to remember that just when Richard Donner premiered worldwide Superman, a man (Piquer Simón), Spanish for more signs, dared with his particular replica name Supersonic Man? Of course, the question is for anyone other than Tarantino. He, as Lavigne knows, does not forget.
«The funny thing is that we have not been able to discriminate or try to understand the value of that cinema. Many of those authors were indeed authors and the most prominent example is undoubtedly Eugenio Martín, ”says Lavigne himself. «Thanks to the French, the Americans have been able to rescue people like Jerry Lewis or Russ Meyer. We need to do our part, ” concludes the producer. And one more: "We have begun to realize when Tarantino has told us." Again.
The film's journey is not and does not want to be rigorous. His attention is focused on everything that, while being popular, was ignored. Hence, we said at the beginning, the contempt of the intelligensia . Or not just her. "There are many people who exhibit a false love towards this cinema," Nacho Vigalondo says in Wild Session. "It was popular cinema, but the popular thing in Spain has always been to despise the popular," he concludes. And, in its own way, it is right. However, and despite everything, few portrayed the Spain of the Transition as accurately as Eloy de la Iglesia, Álvaro del Amo or all the cinema crossed out of quinqui, the authentic Spanish noir . Few times before, the dictatorship, the Francoist, lived a portrait consciously or unconsciously as ruthless as in The attack of the dead without eyes , of Ossorio. And the fantastic country genre never came as high as in the masterpiece of Eugenio Martín Panic in the Trans-Siberian .
But not only that. It is also worth appreciating other virtues, even if it is reading the negative films, in the light. We know each of the Spanish sexual complexes thanks to the "S" classification and no chronicle of the transformation of Spain is close to the production of Mariano Ozores. «I was able to make a movie instantly. The game was decriminalized, The bingueros ; Rumasa broke, The ruined little bee ... », the directors punctuate.
Jorge Grau tells the camera that censorship intervened in La trastienda , the foundation stone of the uncover, to leave Cantudo's nude in half a minute. «It never lasted more than a second and a half. They had heard that there was something, but they didn't know exactly what, ”he says and breaks into laughter in the movie. The anecdote gives the pattern of dismissal.
And who is to blame for the disappearance of all this? The Miró Law that bet directly on serious author cinema or the public that got tired? «All at once», say the directors and thus ratifies, in their own way, each of the interventions on the tape. What is certain is that with the exploitation genre, a curious, active and capable audience also disappeared to understand the taste for the difficult and bitter irony of the wild. «The spectator is now accustomed to seeing what he already sees; What the algorithm says. Away from the times when you decided to watch a movie in the bazaar of a video store by the simple cover, ”says Lavigne. Nostalgia? «Maybe simple justice. When is the tribute that Eugenio Martín deserves? We will have to wait for the next one of ... Tarantino.
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