The nephew of one of our best friends has a vibrant career in the digital universe and visited the London headquarters of Meta, the former Facebook. He told us that the offices are divided into floors named after important women scientists or political leaders. Thus, there is the Marie Curie salon, the Rosalind Franklin salon or the Angela Merkel salon. But there are also two rooms dedicated to gay men who have contributed to the fight for rights or diversity. One of these rooms is named after Pedro Zerolo. Another, mine.
Some merit, some data, there has to be for Meta, the seat of all seats, to name a room after you. I should celebrate but I am going through a difficult time in life to share that makes me feel closer to Liz Truss, today the shortest ex-British Prime Minister in history. Because, seen from the outside, the merits of Liz Truss are very few and even link her to bad luck. She arrived and the queen died. And she leaves half agonizing to the pound. That’s why I accompanied Irene, always positive, to see François Ozon’s latest film: Peter von Kant.
I remembered with Irene what I felt in Caracas, at the end of the seventies, when I discovered The bitter tears of Petra von Kant, a drama about a lesbian woman, Petra, a famous fashion designer, and her assistant, her best friend, her daughter, her mother, and an ambitious and beautiful model with whom she falls terribly in love. Seventies mode. Add obsession plus passion. A little what I do sometimes but with better dramaturgy. That discovery was a true revolution. Someone was talking about the love that I felt. Although I was in Germany. My father, director of the National Cinematheque at the time, organized a Fassbinder retrospective with the collaboration of the German embassy. There I saw the film version from which I learned texts, twists and applied scenographic criteria for future sets. I fell in love with Hannah Schygulla, his fetish actress (a bit of an advertisement for what Carmen Maura would be for Almodóvar). Ozon incorporates her into her version and plays Peter von Kant’s mother when in 1972 she was Petra’s obsessive love. A nod to the life and work of Fassbinder.
The Peter von Kant of the Ozon movie is a living image of Truman Capote’s great promotional phrase (which also meant to many of us): “I’m an alcoholic. I am a drug addict. I am gay. I am a genius.” He mistreats his assistant Hans in a way that only social networks do today. His best friend is a gorgeous actress, Sidonie, played by Isabelle Adjani with her reconfigured face, which turns out to be one of the film’s unexpected finds. The expressionlessness of her mask is the best interpretation of her. Sidonie also sings the theme that Fassbinder turned into an anthem in Lawsuit, his latest film: “Every man kills what he loves most.” A feeling, today too melodramatic, almost law in the gay community of the eighties.
It is timely to rediscover Fassbinder 40 years after his death. Reflect on what has been achieved since then. Without acrimony or rudeness to those who do not agree. The night of the Planeta Awards, after emotionally embracing the winner, Luz Gabás, I met Santi Vila and her husband, surrounded by a group of attractive friends, acting proud and fresh from the gym. We were surprised by our host, José Creuheras. I joked that we were a mini soccer team, on the eve of the derby. In the later drink they told me that Vila is presented in some newspapers in Catalonia as Rare avis, conciliatory and, clearly, a great viewer of Telecinco, that chain that will change its boss and era next week and where many gays find the stage, fame and fortune. Emotional potpourri that would make Peter von Kant very happy.
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