Death triumphs at the San Sebastián festival | Culture

On Wednesday night, Pedro Almodóvar and Costa-Gavras met at the San Sebastian restaurant Zelai Txiki for dinner. The first was celebrating his 75th birthday and the screening of The next room; the second, the wonderful reception in the official section of the contest The last breath. And when they started chatting, they realized that both films contained a message in favor of euthanasia and that every human being has the same right to decide how they live as they do to choose how they die. If the 72nd edition of the San Sebastián festival will be remembered for anything, it is for the approach of many filmmakers to death and the last moments of their characters, who know that they have little time left to live. For this reason, and because the three Spanish series premiered at Zinelmadia will be among the best of the year in the national audiovisual sector.

Death shakes Tilda Swinton’s character in Almodóvar’s film, which was screened at the Donostia festival. His character’s desire is to control his end, like the patients of The last breath. Maintaining dignity, without sentimentality or paternalism, without compassion or emotional blackmail, drives the last actions of Ramón, the character played by Antonio de la Torre in The sparkles, by Pilar Palomero. The terminally ill Chinese woman doesn’t want cheap affection either Bound in Heaven. And the old woman played by Josiane Balasko decides to leave everything tied up in When the automne winds, by the Frenchman François Ozon, who, also, playful as he is, shows a palette of feelings provoked by different deaths.

Another who plays life and death, forced because his object of study is bullfighting, specifically in bullfights, is Albert Serra, who has raised a huge dust storm, in accordance with the quality of his documentary, Lonely afternoons, where the viewer is not spared even a second of the pain and agony of the bulls in the bullrings. And without leaving the official competition section, Conclave (the new film by Edward Berger, responsible for All quiet on the front, which has been one of the most enjoyable films and full of twists of the contest) and The crying They coincide in showing how the dead mark the journey of the living.

The same thing happens in the New Directors section, when death is planted in the middle of the film, announcing its arrival with enough time, as in the very interesting The last romantics, by David Pérez Sañudo; in the danish My Eternal Summer and in thai Regretfully at Dawn. They also talked about euthanasia and deaths, in the Latin Horizons section, the Argentine More people die on Sundays. and in Perlak, the French All the way up and Paul Schrader’s new work, Oh Canada.

Now, what will the jury chaired by last year’s winner, Jaione Camborda, decide? If you bet on a punch, no length can surpass the virtuosity, recklessness and forcefulness of Lonely afternoons. By critical reception, they are not far behind The flashes of Pilar Palomero; the social drama On Falling, by the Portuguese debutante Laura Carreira, who has counted on the production of Ken Loach’s company for another investigation of how the capitalist machine continues to expel people from society – especially immigrants -, and My only family, a return in style from the veteran Mike Leigh, who gives his actress Secrets and lies, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, an unpleasant character, who starts seething in her malignancy and to whom Leigh ends up giving the necessary space for the audience to understand that her brutality is born from terrible pain.

In reality, the contest has hosted an official competition section of good quality, where it only squeaks—yes, it leaves a Homeric blur— Emmanuelle, by Audrey Diwan, anticlimactic in her sexuality and unfriendly in her erotic tirade. Hence, this year the pools are based on a good taste in the mouth and not from the feeling that there is little to reward and even less to celebrate. And in that celebration they have entered, and triumphed, Want, by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, and I, addict, by Javier Giner, both series in the official section, although, obviously, out of competition, and Sky blue, by Diego San José, the tragicomic series premiered at the Velodrome. Its subtlety; bet on different narratives, which avoid clichés; Its adult look at characters and situations and its consideration of the viewer as someone intelligent have made the three series a pillar of Spanish audiovisual production in 2024, no matter how the film creators wear themselves.