Leyre Iglesias
Updated Saturday, January 27, 2024-00:09
'Will you please shut up, please?'
Empty language floods everything. Hundreds of unnecessary adjectives and empty words. One term or another as a fetish and definitive showcase of identity. The self as the center of everything, the feelings in detail, as if we were children or fools. We are used to politicians, but also novelists (and what can we say about columnists). That's why it makes me want to go back to
Raymond Carver
. Any of the American's short stories are devoured in a little while before going to sleep and leave a long residue. Loneliness, partners who get tired, children who don't arrive, scarce money, alcohol. Western everyday life trapped in a few pages and told as if nothing was told to one, as if no one had made an effort to do so. Read it if you haven't already. For example, would you please shut up please? (Anagram). There is no morality but stories and evocation. And, in these tacky times, his economy of language is detoxifying.
'The Curse'
I have seen The Curse because Alberto Rey
recommended it
in this newspaper, and Alberto Rey should always be listened to. The series is truly a bet against the grain: a wonderful couple - the brilliantly unbearable
Emma Stone
and her husband, a loser played by
Nathan Fielder
, who also directs - are dedicated to building super-sustainable houses in a working-class area of Española, New Mexico, since record their feat for a possible
reality show
. Translated: they want to make money with housing that the poor cannot afford and that kill the birds that collide with their mirror facades. The result is an uncomfortable portrait of those people who get excited thinking that they are good people, which unites acolytes of all types of religions. People who live to be seen being charitable to the poor and helping the environment. Doing good. There is something pleasant, almost righteous, in this acid comedy - perhaps with an excessive indie vocation - about two careerists of (necessary) sustainability, in which good intentions deal with hypocrisy, obsession with one's own image and tedious predictability. which all militancy requires.
Michi Panero
already said
that in this life you can be anything but a pain in the ass.
'The Berlin Wall'
It is well worth investing an hour and a half in the exhibition
The Berlin Wall,
at the Canal Foundation in Madrid. A world divided in Madrid. The historical explanation is very understandable and the objects shown easily place you in that broken city. The most shocking thing is the testimonies of ordinary Berliners. It is impressive to see the sequence in which
Frieda Schulze
, a 77-year-old woman, jumps as best she can from a window of her building on the border Bernauer Street to throw herself onto the net that a team of firefighters is holding on the western side. She passed by not long ago. The GDR raised the wall on Sunday, August 13, 1961. It was there until 1989. One of the panels reads: "In the official jargon of the East, the Wall was 'an anti-fascist containment barrier' that protected East Germany from alleged ' Western fascist elements (...)". It makes you think, doesn't it?
'The illustrious citizen'
It is not the best film in history, but it does achieve what the best comedies achieve: make you laugh and also think a little. The actor
Óscar Martínez
superbly plays the role of an Argentine writer, Nobel Prize winner, deified, manic, cosmopolitan, exquisitely Europeanized, who against all odds accepts the invitation to return 40 years later to his town, which he has turned into the setting of his novels, to receive the distinction of "illustrious citizen." The clash between the enthusiastic neighbors and the condescending star leaves hilarious scenes; also bitter. Among other things, the writer disappoints them. Who can face those he writes about without bruises? Neither in the world of fiction nor in that of journalism is it typed to suit the sitter's taste. Unless it is a dictation biography; although that is not literature, much less journalism, of course. It was directed by
Mariano Cohn
and
Gastón Duprat
(who also wrote the script) and premiered in 2016. It can now be seen on RTVE on demand.