Luis Martínez Madrid
Madrid
Updated Friday, February 9, 2024-21:33
Criticism The Snow Society: Bayona against the impunity of cynicism (****)
Report Bayona, on the edge of the impossible: a passionate and chaotic filming, a personal bet and a lot of money at stake
Goya Goya Awards 2024: 20,000 species of bees and their 15 nominations confirm the transformation and diversity of Spanish cinema
Who should win at the 38th edition of the Goya gala today? Rarely has the answer to this question seemed so open and subject not so much to taste, but also to ways of understanding the profession, art and even business. It's like that. Compared to the homogeneity of last season's candidates - all champions of a new cinema with
As bestas
and
Alcarràs
at the helm - this one seems something like a summary of all the generations and the possible options of which it is capable that called Spanish cinema.
Víctor Erice
embodies and summarizes as few filmmakers have ever done before the ethical and aesthetic commitment to what is his which, in some way, is also ours. And it has been since before he directed that classic in 1973 (in which his latest work is seen and reflected) which is
The spirit of the hive
.
Estíbaliz Urresola
(like Elena Martín) perfectly embodies that new voice that has been so celebrated in recent times and that has to do with the evidence of other narratives that have been forgotten for so long.
Isabel Coixet
, for her part, demonstrates in her new work her constant effort to measure herself and fight against the most difficult things with an uncomfortable, cruel, funny and illuminated drama. Next to her,
David Trueba
would be the representative of that other cinema, undoubtedly obligatory, very attentive to tracing the wounds of the present in the recent past.
Closing your eyes, 20,000 species of bees, One Love
and
You Know That
are, in order, films so different from each other that they could be said to be complementary; the perfect pieces of a lucky puzzle or, in a hurry, the ingredients for the most explosive Molotov cocktail imaginable. It doesn't matter.
And then there is
The Snow Society,
by Juan Antonio Bayona. If we pay attention to what has happened in previous awards ceremonies (Forqué and Feroz); to censuses of academics (of the 2,100 possible voters, more than half -1,205- are registered in Madrid), and to that suicidal pleasure at the contradiction demonstrated by a union historically committed to boycotting the films it sends to the Oscars, everything indicates that won't win. He will do it in the technical awards for simple evidence and will probably win the best director statuette (let's say he would obtain, conditionally, up to 11). But the award for best film seems reserved for 20,000 species of bees (a realistic calculation would leave the one that is the favorite with 15 nominations with five Goya awards); as well as the actor award to
David Verdaguer
and the actress award to
Malena Alterio
. The fact that the double Oscar candidacy of the film about the so-called miracle of the Andes arrived with the Goya voting deadline one day before its closing doesn't help either.
But the truth is that rarely before has a film demonstrated its opportunity like Bayona's and, much more importantly, its unanimity in the best of senses. To begin with, it is a unique achievement in the history of Spanish cinema for countless reasons. And all excessive. Its industrial power (it is the most ambitious and expensive production filmed in Spanish) goes hand in hand with its technical extravagance, its intelligence in staging and its visual virtuosity. But a little further, since its premiere it has become
a truly global phenomenon
for something as simple as its clarity, its questioning of cynicism from the enthusiastic vindication of the dignity of all.
Suddenly, the story of the group that turned the community - the common voice of the living and the dead - into the only possible means of survival seems like
the necessary metaphor
for a time, ours, on the brink of all crises. It is not so much naivety as clairvoyance. Opportunity, we said, and unanimity. Rarely has a film seemed so in tune not so much with its time as with each of its shortcomings. If there is a vaccine against polarization it is this: a story without cracks, happy in its refutation of hopelessness, forceful in its rejection of the pessimism of a sad idiot.
If we add to this that its producer,
Belén Atienza,
still does not have a Goya for best film, there is little room for doubt. We are talking, to understand each other, about perhaps the most important film creator in Spanish cinema with titles to her credit such as
Pan's Labyrinth, The Impossible
or
Fallen Kingdom.
Bayona's improbable triumph would be the most probable triumph of the Goya Awards, its best message.