- Opinion: The Moors of Areta, by David Gistau
Germán Areta is José Luis Garci (Madrid, 1944). And backwards. Yes, there are differences, but only formal. Beyond the talkative desire of one against the mutism of the other, both can be dry martini, mus among friends, beauty without adjectives, the night soaked in neon and goodness understood as an exercise in dignity. Analog people. One is more boxing and the other is enough football. Sounds epic, maybe somewhat cheesy, and, indeed, that is what it is; of rescuing the value of immortal affairs by force. Nostalgia with open eyes. This Friday comes to the screens the last adventure of the first that is also the second. Actually, it could be said that it is the first. Of the two. The zero crack tells what happened just before everything. Prequel call him. Suddenly, in an exhibition halfway between melancholy, mastery and the re-reading of postmodern aroma (however rigorously old), what emerges is a prodigy that recovers the perfect taste and sound of that first 1981 film, from that First onomatopoeia The crack, any of them, speaks of a time without time between a gray past and a future not so much hopeful as simply different. The zero crack speaks of an actor who empties himself of each of his gestures and a city that rediscovers a new soul. Crack is basically transition (or Transition), in every way imaginable. And it still is. Right from the start. From Areta From Garci.
Q. First it was Dashiell Hammett, then Raymond Chandler and now James M. Cain ... Each crack is dedicated to a black genre classic ...
A. Before, nobody talked about cinema or black literature. That came later and gave him a prestigious varnish. Before there were no moviegoers. We liked the cinema. All these are inventions of the Nouvelle Vague that made us talk differently. No one thought that Gilda was a noir, we just knew it was a great movie.
P. Soon we started talking about nostalgia ...
A. Yes, that accumulated nostalgia that precedes me is simply a consequence of my taste for classical cinema. I leaned more for Budd Boetticher than for Antonioni. When I saw a pirate movie I felt a strange sadness that I don't know how to analyze. And that has always been there. I am nostalgic since childhood. I saw myself a little alone with Ford, Hawks ... I think what we understand as cinema in the strict sense ends there. The cinema will end in museums.
Q. Everything that is happening now with the digital revolution must be strange ...
A. The cinema is now Netflix. The rooms are over; Going in the morning to get tickets for an afternoon premiere is over. But I don't think it was better before. I just think that time is unrepeatable. That people like Wilder, Hitchcock or Ford coexist, that is something only comparable to the Spanish Golden Age. I think anyway you have to check everything. Even Truffaut realized that he had been unfair to his elders. The same thing happens with movies as with girls: neither the bad ones are so bad nor the good ones so extraordinary. There are forgotten movies that are wonderful and great movies that are presumptuous. But I am convinced that we have not seen the tip of the iceberg. We still have a lot to see.
Q. Let's go to Crack , how to imagine it without Alfredo Landa?
A. The idea was always there. Originally, Victor Clavijo was the actor. In fact, the commitment to make the film was with him in front. Then he could not because of a play. And as he could not, well Carlos Santos. I do not understand that of the directors of casting. I understand that my obligation is to be aware and know what actor is worth.
Q. Is one aware of building a phenomenon when I think about what eventually becomes a reference?
R. What the fuck. When the first installment was released, some treated me as if I had committed a crime. Everyone talked about American references, but nobody noticed my passion for Spanish films such as A Shot Clean, by Francisco Pérez-Dolz. Or Julio Salvador. And I tried to do that with Alfredo Landa, an actor who could do what he wanted.
Q. But the film talked very well with its time, with the Spain of the Transition, with the new Spain of corruption ...
A. I never saw it that way. I looked at things that happened in the newspapers. Nothing else. All those readings were not there. In fact, I didn't even want to do the second part. I talked to Alfredo and it was he who encouraged me. Then there was the idea of making a third part with Alfredo, but it was already impossible ... We wanted to include ETA in the plot ...
Q. The funny thing is that in this film, which takes place in 1975, Spain is cast again now ... We talk about Franco and we continue with him ...
A. Yes, about the exhumation. It is a mystery why these coincidences occur. Maybe everything good is by chance. In the movies and, if I hurry, even in life. The truth is that the year 75 was the promise of a better time. And that melancholy did want me to be there . But perhaps it is true that the films escape and speak for themselves. I only wanted to make a film without italics or underlines, which simply flowed ...
Q. Do you miss the Transition now that so much is discussed?
A. There is a phrase in which Areta reflects on what will happen and says: "Either we hit ourselves again or a miracle occurs and we move forward." Well, then we agreed. And it is true that seen from now on it is incredible that people agreed with blood-stained hands; people like Carrillo who said yes to the flag and the anthem; people like Suarez who had been in the Falange ... Those agreed for what mattered: Spain. We were the Langreo and we played the Champion. Now we are in a new crisis and we will see how this new Transition is done or what it is called. There will always be problems: now it is Catalonia or whatever, but then there was ETA ...
Q. And what happens to us?
R. Spain is a country where we don't love each other. We are only supportive when there is a catastrophe. The glue that should join us from the Catholic Monarchs has not set. Spain is a given suit of itself, the shoulder pads are not adjusted, it does not add anything, it is frayed ... Another suit is needed. Someone will say that I have chosen a tailor in my film for that. And what's up.
Q. Can you make black cinema with mobile phones on the plane?
A. In my movie the chip phones come out. With that I say everything. I have never had a mobile phone. It is never so urgent. People get confused with the urgency. Calls are urgent for the one who makes them, not for the one who receives them.
P. The zero crack is almost a film manifesto and even life ...
A. Reality is already another. People go down the street looking at the mobile. Even cars sound different. I wanted that in my movie you could hear dialogues like that in which she says: "You are a loser." And he replies: «But a very good loser. I am an experienced loser ».
The interview ends and Garci (or were Areta?) Explains what the Lubitsch touch consists of , describes where each of the cinemas in Madrid was in the 70s, describes the "convalescent light" of Las Meninas, protests against the titles of eight-minute credit and, already put, comments precisely the last day of the League. But all that is is another story.
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