Carlos Boyero has always written whatever he wanted. He has expressed his opinions on cinema, politics or other current areas from various media. Two years ago he decided to stop covering the San Sebastián Festival, where he had been a regular since the 80s.
His farewell was filmed in the documentary The critic (Juan Zavala, Javier Morales Pérez, 2022). Now, Boyero has gone a little further and has published I don’t know if I explain myself (Espasa), a memoir written with the collaboration of the journalist Borja Hermoso, which promises to be controversial because Boyero tells of his life and, incidentally, speaks openly about cinema, from fellow journalists or from politics.
The controversial film critic leaves some puppets with a head, because he speaks with affection of colleagues such as Oti Rodríguez Marchante, Pedro J. Ramírez, Julia Otero, Iñaki Gabilondo or Carlos Francino. But he also shoots other characters like Pedro Almodóvar, especially against Pedro Almodóvar, to whom he dedicates an entire chapter entitled What have I done to deserve this?
“Almódovar is a specialist in silly scenes and making me feel ashamed of others,” says the critic and gives some examples of the sequences that he most disliked: “There were two friends on the street and one was telling the other that she had met to her husband at the Festival of Sacred Music in Fez, or something like that. And the husband was a bricklayer, or carpenter, I’m not sure either. And I say: what is a bricklayer from Toledo doing at the Festival of Sacred Music in Fez, which “Did the Rolling Stones used to visit while sightseeing? Come on, don’t be ridiculous, man, don’t be ridiculous…!”
Another of the moments in Almódovar’s films that Boyero dislikes is “that ending of All About My Mother, with a supposedly fascinating and mysterious character, a transsexual who has impregnated a nun played by Penélope Cruz and to whom he has infected AIDS.” , and who suddenly appears at the end of the film and turns out to be Toni Cantó with a pair of tits, dressed in Armani of course, and with a terrible big hair.”
Despite attacking Almodóvar mercilessly, Boyero acknowledges that he likes some of his films such as Átame!, What Have I Done to Deserve This, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Volver, but insists that the man from La Mancha “has made “too many movies that make me sick.” “I can’t stand it, it’s unbearable to me, it’s a matter of the skin and the soul (…) I can’t stand his movies. He can’t stand me either.”
In the pages of I don’t know if I explain myself, it is clear that Boyero does not like Pedro Almodóvar. He doesn’t like another Pedro either. Pedro Sánchez, the president of the Government. “I already know that Pedro Sánchez looks very good, speaks English and has a lot of international prestige, or so his many palm trees and palm trees assure (…), but his alleged ethics, or the absolute absence of that concept, makes me cringe. in their behavior,” he says.
And he adds: “I recognize his ability for absolute shamelessness, lies and ability to manipulate. His shameful changes of opinion with respect to what he had declared just months ago in relation to various issues, but above all that of the amnesty, I find them regrettable.”
Boyero also charges against some members of the Government. “And what can we say about their ministers? They are not credible, and they speak and behave like priests. They recite texts that sound like the most false theatrical representation. And when I see Bolaños and Albares, I can’t help but imagine them at the desk. from school, perfectly embodying the role of the class snitches.
I don’t know if I understand it, it is full of many other criticisms, but also of experiences, anecdotes and compliments towards the people that Boyero appreciates and towards the colleagues he respects.
