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At the beginning of one of the chapters of

'Boys of the stream'

('Ragazzi di vita')

, Pasolini drops a quote from the Russian Tolstoy which reads "The people are a great savage within society".

The Italian leaves there through an interposed mouth a good part of his ideology, aware of the indomitable condition of his heroes who resist the contempt of some as well as the condescending and pious gaze of others.

They suffer yes, but above all they laugh.

Heartily.

'Canallas',

Daniel Guzmán

's second film

after the lighting

'In exchange for nothing',

is exactly that.

In all that lasts this comedy that is also a '

thriller

';

In what runs this picaresque social portrait that is also an exaggerated joke and quinqui, the voice of the disinherited from the suburbs resonates as what it is: as a great savage.

Not a trace of self-pity or an ounce of shame.

Neither surrender nor consolation.

It could be said, and it is said, that the film that on Saturday, rather than showing itself, took over, greedily and unceremoniously, with the Malaga Festival is a rejection of everything.

It is the opposite of a Caritas report and the radical opposite of a politician who, after looking around him, the only sign of poverty he can see is the anemic weakness of his very poor dignity.

'

Scoundrels

' is a happy anomaly that does not allow more definition than the bellow.

Voracious and unclassifiable, proud of being the last flag standing in the field.

Guzmán says that his idea was to "laugh, have a good time" and do it with his own, with those who have been his since before the adolescence of motorcycles with free exhaust and jug clubs even had a name.

And so, there are Joaquín, Brujo and Luismi, played by Joaquín González -the authentic superhero of all this and actor of himself because there is no other choice-, Guzmán himself and Luis Tosar.

The director says that his intention (an intention that has kept him busy for seven years and a lifetime in the editing room) was

to flee from any learned formula.

"A good part of the cinema that is made now floats like dead fish on the surface of the water: it neither dives to explore the bottom nor flies to breathe the fresh air. It simply dies," he confesses.

And while he speaks, she points out to avoid misunderstandings that

he does laugh at his characters.

Not with them, but without shame from them.

The problem is that the characters of his also "are '

boneless

'" of him.

"We make life impossible, go," he concludes.

'

Scoundrels

', to situate ourselves, is the story of a reunion of three perfect useless like Fellini's '

vitelloni

' and in a scenario that could well be that of '

What have I done to deserve this!',

by Almodóvar.

The first two remain without a job and the third, without profit, despite being, if only in his imagination, a businessman.

At almost 50 years of age, Joaquín is still toothless and living in the concrete kingdom of Orcasitas at his mother Esther's house, along with his daughter Brenda, a yo-yo champion, and his brother Chema, a welder and master of the most Martian art ever. martial Wing Chun.

Everything in Joaquín's life goes wrong, but there is the movie and reality itself to show that it can go much worse.

He's poor, yes, but not an asshole.

Or vice versa.

The film mixes the real characters (Joaquín, Esther, Brenda, Chema or, attentive, Víctor Ruiz 'Popi') who give life to themselves, but without much notice, with actors like those mentioned above plus Luis Zahera, Julián Villagrán or Antonio Durán '

Morris

', which is not clear if they follow the script or if the script follows them.

Halfway between reality, always so close to the surreal, and fable, which can only be true, '

Canallas

' runs through the screen like

a provocation, like a rumble,

like a riddle with no other result than the vocation unredeemed of him.

With the quinqui cinema it shares its instability for the simple reason that the subject of the periphery has always had a hard time being someone.

He was and still is a threat and a promise.

The great savage would say the Russian Tolstoy and the Roman Pasolini.

He endangers the world of unworthy politicians because they are poor, but at the same time announces the fever of adventure.

The suburban hero

who populated the years of the Transition with jerks, rumbas and cars 1430 still preserves the ontological status of the unstable for always appearing in the limit space of difference, on the margins of the consumer society that he longs for as much as he despises .

But '

Scoundrels

', we said, is something else.

With comedy, '

Canallas

' shares his hunger for the absurd, but without giving up denunciation, bravado and even pride.

Exhibitionist and decent, cruel and funny, wild and wilder.

And no teeth.

Like the documentary, 'Canallas' doesn't mind getting muddy, but with his everyday suit (there's no other) spotless and his wallet completely empty.

'

Scoundrels

' are missing many teeth.

Daniel Guzmán 's new film

makes each of his mistakes his own to transform them into gold

with which to cover the teeth of before and, with what is left over, buy the teeth of Hitler himself.

As it is.

What remains is a voracious and indomitable '

Valleinclanesco

' tableau of a Spain without dental insurance and with essentially seedy politicians

looking for the poor among the rubble of their decency.

Or indecency.

The great savage.

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