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In just under a year,

Isaki Lacuesta

has obtained a master's degree in apocalypse.

In all of them and from all the possible chords of his bugles.

Like everyone, but him more.

At the sound of the fourth trumpet, "the third part of the Sun, the third part of the Moon and the third part of the stars were damaged", reads the biblical text and, in effect, that is what the television series is about.

Blackout

' of which the director signs the last of the chapters.

At the sound of the one that follows, and always according to the Book, he saw how "locusts that spread over the Earth emerged from the smoke, and they were given power like that of scorpions."

The coronavirus continues to be a creature like those mentioned, in addition to seeming the most obvious proof and metaphor of the fragility of all.

And finally, with the cry of the sixth, "the four angels bound by the great river Euphrates were released to kill a third of the people."

'One year, one night',

the film that is now being released, could well be in part the story and image of this last apocalyptic episode of which, once again, Lacuesta acts as transcriber.

Not surprisingly,

for the first time in the cinema there is talk of the 2015 Paris attacks that changed everything.

There is talk of what was left after a group of four terrorists wiped out the lives of at least 80 people in the notorious

Bataclan

hall .

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"That changed everything. Starting with the very sound of the city," recalls the director to only point out the depth of the wound, the dimension of, in effect, the Apocalypse that does not end.

"I remember that when we rehearsed, before shooting, we discussed it among the whole team. Paris was a constant hubbub of sirens that did not stop sounding. Suddenly, the feeling of hypervigilance took over every daily gesture in a much more pronounced way than after the 9/11 attacks," he continues.

And he adds: "Suddenly, a sense of fragility spread of collective pleasures such as concerts, terraces or the cinema from which we have not yet completely got rid of and against which we have to act.

Between pandemics, terrorism and now the energy crisis with the war in the background, it would seem that we live in a conspiracy to lock ourselves up at home.

The film is based on the book by

Ramón González

'

Peace, love and Death metal'

.

He was one of the survivors.

His was a colossal effort to force memory to stay with him and, by the way, with everyone.

"Ramón used his story and his writing as a form of therapy. He sat down to write just two weeks after the massacre with the intention of not forgetting, not letting what he went through be lost or confused among a thousand other stories" , comments Lacuesta with undisguised devotion to a task that is almost by force as titanic as it is definitively impossible.

And he continues: "When I spoke with Ramón and his girlfriend, she remembered that everything was in the dark, that they hardly saw the lights of the mobiles. He, on the other hand, is clear that everything was seen clearly. And that is precisely the horror. curious is that

memory is not only fragile but terrifyingly creative.

Later, the chief of police told me that the traumatized officers weren't just the ones who had come in and, after seeing it all, could hardly do anything;

Those who did not enter were also affected equally or more, and after listening to their classmates, they also began to have clear memories of what they had not seen".

'One year, one night',

to avoid confusion, does not tell about the attack itself, but rather focuses on the consequences of the nearby death of others in lives condemned to live forever with the clear memory of dark horror.

Everyone suffers in their own way.

He (the masterful actor

Nahuel Pérez Biscayart)

stops and lets himself fall, aware that after what he has experienced, nothing stands up.

She (no less enormous

Noémie Merlant)

keeps going knowing that if she stops and looks back she will lose her footing forever.

And yet, and without being the description of the obvious cruelty of the slaughter or the argument or the objective, there she is, perfect, whole and brutal.

"It is difficult to clearly discern

how far it can be shown without falling into the obscene.

But neither can you cheat and trust everything to the imagination of the viewer, leaving the hardest things out of the field. Our limits were always not showing the impact of the bullets in the bodies and not give the terrorists the leading role at any time", explains Lacuesta with conviction and even with a hint of rage.

"You cannot fall into the spectacularization of violence. There are things that have beauty that should not have it. When the victims leave the dressing room in the dark and find the light; suddenly, that is something beautiful and liberating, but deep down it was And it's deeply terrifying," he insists.

The entire film is composed as a prodigious and timeless puzzle where the past intersects with the present in search of a future that never comes.

Memory is nothing more than the real witness of lives that resist.

And that they do it between the memory of the terrible and the necessary hope.

"Now that the trial has been held, it is time to tell everything, to share the feelings of all those who have so far lived with their suffering in solitude. I know that there are many other films and books in the making or already ready It

is time, despite everything, to take to the streets again and claim now more than ever the collective pleasures "

, concludes the apocalypse expert already in Lacuesta.

Outside trumpets.

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  • Paris

  • Coronavirus

  • covid 19

  • Lockdown

  • de-escalation

  • deconfinement

  • new normal

  • regrowth

  • cinema