Leaving the cinema without knowing what to think

2023-02-15T17:30:17.697Z

Even art without moral intent has a moral effect. The best fiction puts the viewer in the shoes of the characters and forces them to reflect before judging.

The greatest demonstration of the political superiority of cinema over literature is that it has no enemies.

At least in Spain.

You have to be Cristina Morales and enjoy watching Barcelona burn to be criticized for having written something as harmless as a novel.

The books do not even carry a warning about the explicitness of their language —like the songs on Spotify— nor a label with the minimum age necessary to read them, like the movies.

To make matters worse, the labeling of the platforms, far from dissuading, is another form of advertising: sex, violence, terror.

Do you remember the scene from

Taking Harry Down ?

When the protagonist's wife reproaches him for only abiding by four values - "nihilism, cynicism, sarcasm and orgasm" - he replies: "With a motto like that in France, I could be elected president."

The ideological value of cinema does not consist in its creators praising public health.

That is done by anyone, even those who torpedo her.

Its power lies in the ability to massively confront issues that we still don't know what to think about.

Literally.

That is another of the great contributions of recent Spanish cinema.

At the Goya ceremony, Rodrigo Sorogoyen said goodbye with: "Wind power, yes, but not like that."

The question is: "So how?"

Of course, it is not up to him to answer it, by formulating it without Manichaeism he has already done his job.

The same as Carla Simón with the solar panels.

Just as the dodgy brothers of

As bestas

have his reasons, the resistant father of

Alcarràs

has his dodgy face.

“Wind power yes, but not like this.”

Then how?

Carlos Vermut and his protagonist ―Nacho Sánchez― were left without an award for

Mantícora

, but it will take time to resolve one of the dilemmas that both raise in the film: the criminal nature or not of computer-generated child pornography and that it does not refer to a reference real.

Will these images one day come to deserve the same judgment that Titian's Venus hangs in the Prado Museum have today?

Or will they keep the one that those nudes had in Felipe II's rooms?

The one who did enjoy his opportunity was Telmo Irureta for his role in

The Rite of Spring

“Disabled people exist and we fuck too,” she said.

His speech and the applause he aroused have been criticized as an apology for prostitution.

In Fernando Franco's film, the character of Valeria Sorolla goes from being her friend to, according to the euphemism, her sexual assistant.

The best fiction puts the viewer in the shoes of all the characters and forces them to think twice before signing a sentence that was much clearer outside the cinema.

Even art without moral intent has a moral effect.

Sometimes the greater the intention, the lesser the effect.

Hence the surprise that ―despite the claims of the Council of Europe and some of the survivors of the Coordinadora de Presos en Lucha― none of the

Model 77

winners said anything about Spanish prisons.

When History is nothing more than a genre, art does not detach itself from the past.

And leave us alone.