• Television Cuéntame's latest "miracle": "What this series has done is tremendous"
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"Like Quixote, Antonio has his Dulcinea, my mother. And even though he is macho, conceited, arrogant and bossy, there is no greater love than the one that coffee by coffee over the years the two of them have drunk. As a father he is a gift, authoritarian, controlling, invasive, crushing, although in honor of the truth we have not made it easy for him nor have we returned half of what he has given us." And once again the voice of Carlos Hipólito (Carlitos as an adult) was the voice that best described the character who for 20 years, without detracting, of course, from the rest, especially Ana Duato, has carried the weight of Cuéntame: Antonio Alcántara, Imanol Arias on his shoulders.

A few weeks ago, just one day before the premiere of the first episode of the final season of Cuéntame, in the presentation that RTVE prepared for that season, I chatted with Imanol Arias. In that meeting, escorted by Ana Duato and Irene Visedo (Inés), Imanol Arias only had words of gratitude for his Antonio Alcántara. More than 20 years playing the same character is many, too many. Years in which the character and the actor become confused as in a kind of casual symbiosis, although also sought. Imanol Arias loves the character, but Imanol Arias was clear that Antonio Alcántara, like Cuéntame, deserved to say goodbye in style, "for never a long time".

Imanol Arias began playing Antonio Alcántara with "coal-black hair" and a mustache that he fixed every morning when he woke up. He began playing Antonio Alcántara, who was a janitor in a ministry and in the afternoons the head of a printing company. An Antonio who worked from dawn to dusk to be able to support a family of three children (the fourth would later arrive), his wife and his mother-in-law. Those were different times, but despite the fact that more than 20 years had passed, despite the fact that Antonio Alcántara was no longer that janitor, Antonio Alcántara never stopped being Antonio Alcántara. And that, that symbiosis, that continuation could only be possible thanks to an Imanol Arias who has loved this character as much as he has hated him on many occasions.

Some time ago, Jacobo Delgado, coordinator of the scriptwriters of Cuéntame in the last seasons, wrote together with the rest of his colleagues a farewell article, a tribute to Imanol Arias and his Antonio entitled Antonio Alcántara ha muerto, viva Antonio Alcántara. When Antonio Alcántara's farewell was written, Antonio's farewell chapter wasn't even written in his head. And in that article, Delgado described Antonio Alcántara not only as his most beloved character, but as a "loving husband and bastard with looks. Authoritarian father and friend to his children. Integrity almost always, cheeky at times. Idealistic and earthy. Dreamy and realistic." It said: "Spain and I are like that, madam," wrote Marquina. Antonio is not Spain, he is the father of Spain. All the fathers of Spain fit in Antonio Alcántara." Antonio Alcántara's farewell in last night's episode of Cuéntame was precisely to put these words on the screen.

Last night Antonio Alcántara was more Antonio Alcántara than ever, he was more of a father than ever, he was "more of a bastard with looks than ever", he was more of a husband than ever, he was more Imanol than ever. Antonio Alcántar and Imanol Arias deserved a farewell like last night's. A farewell in which Imanol Arias made it very clear why he is one of the best actors in our country, why he has been able to play the same character for more than two decades and not get tired or tired. Last night Imanol Arias was the Antonio Alcántara of the more than 400 episodes that have been broadcast of the series. Last night Imanol Arias was the Antonio Alcántara with all his edges. Last night Imanol Arias was, once again, the father of all.

With New Year's Eve 1999 as a backdrop and the dreaded 2000 Effect, the screenwriters used the fear that settled in at the end of the year as a metaphor for what Antonio Alcántara was ruminating on: old age. Getting old and thinking that you're no longer good for anything, that no one needs you anymore, that you're already an old piece of junk and that "before I give anyone a bad life, I disappear from the map". Because last night's episode of Cuéntame was not only Antonio Alcántara's farewell episode, it was a tribute to all the parents who are now grandparents, but who never stopped being parents or being the guide of children who no longer seem to need you, But they need you more than ever. It was a tribute to your father, to mine, to everyone's. And it wasn't a pretty tribute, or a soft one, it wasn't a brutal tribute because getting old, in this society of now, in the year 2000, must be very similar to what he showed last night.

And they did it again with the same capacity they have done these 20 years, showing what it is like to reach old age. What it's like to go and renew your driver's license and be thrown back because you don't see as you used to, nor do you manage to keep the ball in its lanes. It's that you forget things, that you get up and look in the mirror and remember when your hair wasn't white, when you felt invincible. It's that your children doubt you like they haven't doubted before. It's that you feel like sending everything to hell and that no one and nothing bothers you.

"I'm out of gas like a lighter," Antonio Alcántara said last night to his niece Paquita after losing his young granddaughter in Sagrillas due to a mistake. "It's best if he dies." Sound familiar? "Before I give someone a bad life, I disappear from the map. I didn't come into this world to have my ass wiped. I'm shutting down like computers." A brutal scene so real that it didn't feel like you were watching a series, much less a fiction. And the eyes of Imanol Arias, those eyes that said more than a few harsh words.

"Do you know what Antonio's truth is? That I'm a lie, that I'm a fraud. Let's go to the Guardia Civil if they arrest me." Because in last night's episode, Antonio Alcántara sinks to the depths. He analyzes his life from the side of all his defects without remembering the side of all his virtues, which are as many or more than his imperfections. Antonio Alcántara was never perfect, as none of us are, as no father is, but you reach old age and those defects that you used to jump and avoid weigh heavily. It's a father's backpack.

Antonio Alcántara gets so far down in last night's episode of Cuéntame that he decides to sell his wineries, those that have given him so many problems, but which are the essence of Antonio Alcántara. Why else was the chapter going to be titled, Antonio. The land. And he's about to do it if it wasn't for his kite, for his Merche, for the woman who always saw the worst and the best of Antonio and always kept the latter: "I don't want an old man in my house, I don't want an old man in my bed, I don't want someone to help me take down the garbage. You hear me? You can't leave me alone on this stretch of the road. I want the country to come back and not the country", Palabra de Merche. Oh, Merche!

And the para'rriba returns, the Antonio Alcántara of strength, the one of 'no one is going to step on me or my family or what is mine' returns. And the same symbiosis of so many years ago took place, that of Antonio, that of Imanol, that of the "father of Spain".

The year 1999 ends, the year 2000 arrives and Antonio Alcántara goes out into the street, wearing his New Year's Eve hat, under the always attentive eye of his Merche. He looks at the sky, looks ahead and says goodbye. Goodbye Antonio Alcántara. "Thank you Imanol Arias for making it possible."

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