What is it to be a film critic?
I don’t know, I don’t read movie reviews.
¿No?
I read the first lines, I don’t understand them and I leave it.
But he does write reviews.
I look at the screen and tell what emotions are going through me.
What do you look for in a film?
Some emotion or shock. But I almost always get bored. I say it from the “I”.
¿Egotismo?
Frankness.
Many fear him.
There is no devious intention in me, no one should fear my comment. Don’t even get angry.
If it’s a friend’s movie, what?
If I don’t like it, I say so. And it’s painful…
And he loses his friend…
He wasn’t a friend, then.
Was he a friend of Pedro Almodóvar?
No. Movies like What Have I Done to Deserve This? I liked them, and I said so.
He skins almost all his films…
I don’t get along, they make me repulsive.
If Almodóvar entered here now…
Neither he would look at me nor would I greet him.
What has he done to her?
He asked my directors for my head. Almodóvar, with all the power in the world! What more does he want? Kill Boyero?
That Boyero likes his movies.
Well it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen!
How many movies do you watch per week?
Two or three, for work. And for pleasure, three a day.
Three a day!
They are my drug. I tried all the drugs: cinema is the only one that doesn’t give me a hangover.
What drugs did you try?
Cocaine, LSD, marijuana, heroin, hashish, MDMA, pills, alcohol… I got high… and wrote TV reviews.
Man, it’s not necessary: I do it bareback.
It was because of my vital seizures, not because of the TV. But that is now behind us.
How did those criticisms go?
Audacity aside, you only write well when you’re sober.
What excites you when you open your eyes?
Nothing. Nothing. Unless my video and TV don’t break down: I want to watch those three movies in the afternoon.
On the last afternoon of your life, what three movies will you watch?
The Apartment, The Hustler and The Irishman’s Tavern.
Why The Apartment?
The protagonist, an unworthy careerist, regains his dignity because he falls in love. It’s the best love movie in the world!
What is love, Boyero?
The best thing in life and I lived it several times. The bad thing is that it had an ending, always sad endings.
What was the best of the best about love?
Sex and going to the movies together and discovering that we felt the same while watching a movie. Living that is hell!
You could fall in love tomorrow.
I would melt and surrender. But no: I will not play another ending. I have pigeonholed myself. I went through the pandemic alone and one day I went down to the street… in my pajamas! My mother would have said about this: “My son has abandoned himself.”
But today he does come out, and publishes a book…
But inside I’m still wearing my pajamas: I’m still abandoning myself.
What was your mother like?
The sweetest, kindest, most elegant woman. She suffered from my father. The brute hit me, like the priests hit me. That’s why I mentioned the movie The Hustler…
Explain that to me…
I lived in a boarding school in Salamanca. It was hard. And one day I ran away, when I was 13 years old. I went into a cinema and saw The Hustler: I felt like that movie was for me!
And would life confirm it later?
Absolutely! The priests stole my innocence: sinister nights, I escaped for not being handsome… I was filled with resentment and bad feelings, with rejection of all authority.
And that bad shit lasts, right?
Yes. And the internal loneliness. “I have put my happiness in being sad,” Stendhal wrote.
Is something similar happening to you?
As hedonistic as I am… I even take pleasure in sadness. One day I sat on a street bench and cried. A passer-by approached me, poor…: how embarrassing for both of us when he recognized me!
What would your mother say to I don’t know if I explain, your confession book?
It would be nice: I’m your son! My mother has been the only person in the world to whom I did not need to say “I don’t know if I explain myself.”
Interview over: how about we watch a movie?
The Irishman’s Tavern: I would like to live in that village, in Innisfree…, where everyone would be so, so incorrect today!
Can you make some popcorn, Boyero?
Get away! You and I are done.