In a context where it is increasingly difficult to get someone to pay for a movie ticket to see a movie, producers are looking for bets with solid bases to attract the viewer. That is why in Hollywood they do not stop rescuing past successes and exploiting franchises; or to search best sellers with a big fan phenomenon who wants to come and see how those pages are transferred to the cinema; as has been the recent case of Break the circleone of the big surprises at the box office this year.
In Spanish cinema it is not so easy. There are no franchises beyond those created by Santiago Segura with his family comedies (just as he did before with Torrente) and some animated hits like Tadeo Jones. Successful novels are also adapted, however, this flow is not so common between film and theater. While in the US this year the adaptation of the musical is eagerly awaited Wicked, Here it is not so common to see how the phenomena of Spanish theaters jump to the big screen.
There was a small boom with plays from Teatro del Barrio that became low-budget political films like b (which adapted the work Ruz-Bárcenas) either the king. Perhaps the most popular was the adaptation of The call, the musical work that placed Los Javis in the spotlight of the industry and that they themselves adapted into their feature film debut. But beyond that and classics like Lorca, who from time to time returns in the form of versions like the one Paula Ortiz did in The bride ―adaptation of blood wedding-, there is not much more.
That is why it is surprising that ten years after its success, the adaptation of a phenomenon that surprised everyone in 2013 arrives in film form. It was called Summer in Decemberhad already won the Calderón de la Barca award the previous year and was released that same year. Word of mouth had its effect and managed to become a success that materialized in a nomination for the 2014 Max Awards in the Breakthrough Authorship category and a massive tour that led the work to return to the National Dramatic Center in 2016 and was extended until 2020.
In her leap she does so with the same director, Carolina África, and a cast that brings together the best actresses forged in theater and then in cinema: Carmen Machi, Bárbara Lennie, Victoria Luengo, Irene Escolar and two presences that will make the Those who saw the play sit as if they were in a theater chair. The first, that of Lola Cordón, the endearing grandmother who repeats the same role. The second, that of Beatriz Grimaldos, who makes her film debut with the role of Alicia. She was not in the original play, but she was in its sequel, because the theatrical success of Summer in December caused a continuation called Autumn in April where Grimaldos already played this character.
Despite arriving 10 years after its premiere, this delay has only been caused by the success of the show itself. “It was during a pandemic when Chema de la Peña, a director with whom I had worked as a screenwriter, and whom I invited to one of those screenings, met me in a bar and told me: ‘Hey, here’s a movie.’ Since the world stopped at that moment, I had time to deal with it. The process of putting together the film began with writing in a pandemic, a year of putting it together, another of shooting it, post-production and now the premiere. So let’s say it has been relatively fast,” he explains.
With a work so tested with the public, they have been able to analyze or at least try to understand what was the key that moved people with this story of a neighborhood family. Four generations of women, the grandmother, the mother, the daughters and a little granddaughter, who, like in any self-respecting family, have their quarrels, secrets and hidden darts to bring up in a discussion around the table. Beatriz Grimaldos saw the work several times as a spectator, and felt challenged “on many levels.” “It moved you but without straining you, without looking for it, with that ability to dance between comedy and drama in a magical way. And above all, it connects you with the relationship you have with your sister, with your mother, with a daughter… you travel with them,” he says of his memory.
Carolina África premiered it in theater with the fear that her family would be identified, but then she realized that everyone saw her own family. “That’s how all families work, between love, hate, between you love them, but you can’t stand them,” he says. Through that family he also wanted to talk about other topics such as care, but “without wanting to give big lessons, looking for those small details where the immensity burns.” “I find it very difficult to talk about very big issues if it is not from the small point of view. You can understand a civil war in a fight between two brothers and it seems to me that that is where it can be done. I, at least, with my more or less talent, believe that I need to go from the small, from what I am able to observe and transfer it to the viewer honestly. I don’t want to put myself above the viewer, but rather go to that small detail that marks everything,” he analyzes.
Things that come from observing her family and the people she has met in neighborhoods like those shown in the film, since she lives in the same streets where, for example, the end of the film was filmed. Or those from the Alcorcón neighborhood where he grew up. Or the town of La Iglesuela del Tuétar where his family came from. “There is something about the humility of the neighborhood. They are very real people and sometimes that is not in fiction, or that is aestheticized. It was very important to me that the house was a real house. They considered doing it on a set, and I said no, it had to be real. I suppose there is something that I come from there, and I have transferred what I have felt. Not in a premeditated way, but I talk about what I know,” says the director.
Grimaldos emphasizes those houses that feel lived-in, not like those in many current series and movies: “I am very tired of seeing the house of a character who is a professor and is a piece of mansion with a window overlooking the sea. A teacher who cannot allow this and suddenly there you see it. Carolina has also taken the filming to the locations in her neighborhood, and that is very nice. His children swing on that swing, that is his bakery… I like to see in a movie that you recognize a neighborhood, and it is easier to recognize yourself there.”
In Summer in December All women try to find their own place, but they are all plagued by problems that affect all women. They see how care falls on them and no one else but them. Whether it is that of the grandmother or that of the daughter of Bárbara Lennie’s character, as the director highlights in a beautiful scene that unites both activities in a parallel montage. “Care mostly falls socially on women, but I think it is clear that the new generations have taken a step, because the character of Carmen Machi assumes that the task of care falls on her, and she does not even want to delegate it to a nursing home. , although then she asks God not to have to take care of her, because she knows the sacrifice it entails,” she explains.
It shows care as “something very hard and very difficult”, and asks that “a space to take care of yourself, not just take care of others” be claimed. Although also in the way in which these sisters take care of themselves there is a network of help that makes them survive, “a very deep debate around care that goes beyond caring for the grandmother, because that is something that structures the relationships between them intergenerationally.”
#Summer #December #small #theatrical #phenomenon #women #working #class #care #film
