By: Aileen Perez
The first thing the filmmaker did Javier Corcuera when meeting Evaristo Páramos, leader of La Polla Records, was to propose to him to make a documentary about that mythical punk band that had been separated for sixteen years. The answer was a resounding no. Corcuera had convinced his friend and Spanish actor Willy Toledo to take him to a meeting that he would have with Evaristo in Bilbao. The actor was going to collaborate with the choirs in a song by the musician’s group, ‘Gatillazo’, and the only condition for the filmmaker to accompany them in the recording studio was that he sing too. And he did. Corcuera did not know anything more about Evaristo after that afternoon. But, three years later, a friend sent him a message from the musician: the band was getting back together and he wanted to make the documentary. The result of six weeks of filming in Spain and Latin America not only shows his time on stage for the last time, but is also an x-ray of the story of a gang of boys who put together a group without knowing how to play an instrument.
–He met Evaristo and Abel, leaders of the group, decades after hearing La Polla Records for the first time. What impression did they make on you?
–I discovered that they are very simple and folksy people who decided to create a band at the end of the seventies due to the need to communicate something. There is a history of deep friendship in this group that used to get together at the Otxoa bar to listen to music together with Fernandito and Charly, the other members, because it was one of the few places where they could hear rock.
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–How important was the Otxoa bar for the band? Part of the documentary is filmed there.
–In fact, it was the group’s recruitment office. The manager was the waiter and when he wanted to throw them out because it was already late, he put on his own music. They were embarrassed and left. They grew up there, and have not stopped going until now.
–He imagined filming this documentary for years. Was the result what she expected?
–The film begins as the documentation of the farewell tour, but then it moves away from that idea. To interview Evaristo, we would go to his town to accompany him on his daily walks through the mountains, and we would meet up with Abel at the Otxoa bar. In a very natural way he became a story about the band, he was not limited to the tour.
-What was essential to show in it?
–As Evaristo says in a song: “Everything is a fucking joke, everything is by chance”. Abel and Evaristo demystify the band, punk in general. I think that in my case it was also important to demystify the genre documentary film. The film had to be playful and irreverent, like the group, and show its seams. It seemed the most consistent.
Corcuera explains that the film turned “in a very natural way” into a story about the band that was not limited to the tour. Photo: Official La Polla Records/Facebook
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–It is the first time that you mix animation in a documentary film.
Yes, I thought so from the beginning. The audiovisual proposal includes animated sequences by Manuel Viqueira, who collected the fanzine aesthetics of the band and images from his discography to recreate some fragments of the plot, such as the trip to Peru.
–Did the band suggest any ideas?
-Evaristo wanted his mother, Pilar, to appear, who had never seen him standing on stage in his forty-year career. He ended up convincing her to go to the concert in Bilbao. Other than that, the only comment he made to me was that punk was about doing whatever you want, so I made whatever movie I wanted.
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