Let’s see, seriously, how good is Spanish cinema? This year there have been good films, it is indisputable. But after yesterday’s Goya ceremony – which began, with the red carpet, at half past seven in the evening – one may think that paradise is a packed room, as Hitchcock wanted, but only to see films made in Spain (mainly, made in Madrid). Wonderful year, the best year ever; spectacular and brave cinema. And again. Self-indulgence is exhausting, Mr. President of the Academy, Méndez-Leite, who no longer asks politicians for anything, not even the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, present in the Seville auditorium. Without being an unconditional supporter of Albert Serra, one laments the absence of the Banyoles director in an act like yesterday’s, marked by triumphalism and condescension. Surely Serra, with his usual causticity, would have had some idea to put so much triumphalism in his place.
In the right place, without a doubt, was the tribute to Carlos Saura. She moved Carmen Maura evoking the teacher and moved the eldest son of Carlos Saura. Also his son Antonio, renowned film producer, talking about the four wives of his father. But above all she was moved by the very long applause that crowned the delivery of the Goya of honor to Saura. Of course, Juliette Binoche was moved by being there, talking about honesty and singing Because you’re leaving. And it is that in the end one is left with the emotions at stake rather than with the spectacle of the ceremony, little and content. The Goyas of yesterday did not want more. More moments? Susi Sánchez, and her call for solidarity between the sexes; Telmo Irureta, from his wheelchair, asking for a more inclusive cinema, and Luis Zahera, that monster, with his Goya for best supporting actor in hand. They remembered Agustí Villaronga, but little. Esteso and Portillo y Navas recalled it. And a mystery: why the tribute to Lola Flores? Concession to the topic?
We are facing a dissuasive ceremony, that is not new. Easy to quit before the end. Presented by Antonio de la Torre without excesses, with precision and with very few interventions. Good for him, and good for Clara Lago, for the same reason. The rest is palmares.
