In 2008 Carlos F. Heredero wrote a book about the screenwriter and actor Pedro Beltrán. Graduated Pedro Beltrán, the humanity of the grotesque, and published by the Murcia Regional Film Library, this work went somewhat unnoticed. Not so many people have the figure of Perico Beltrán on their radar, although only because he is the author of the script for The strange journey (available on Flixolé and published on DVD years ago by this newspaper) would already deserve a plaque in Cartagena. It happens, when great writers with long careers are interviewed, that there is no pride in his words. Seasoned in disappointment and the hardships of life, they say everything that we have no fucking desire to hear.
The story of the writer Perico Beltrán is that of a loose verse that was only recited on rare occasions (only six of his scripts were filmed). Good screenwriters are, first, good writers, and the best scripts are—in addition to being a guide for making a movie—good works of literary quality. The text of The strange journey It was published—losing the script format—by La Página Ediciones. It is a beautiful script.
If you read this book (you can find it at a very good price, and it is worth it) you will be able to read invaluable reflections not only on cinema, but also on life. “I understand that money is one of the most important causes of death in the history of humanity. Of physical death and moral death,” he confesses.
The entire interview with him (for me, along with his biography, the most interesting part of the book) gives off a lukewarm disenchantment, a scenario over which the ghosts of the films that were not, that were never made, swarm. In those that were made (I especially highlight Witch, more than witch and The monosage) there is one unforgivable flaw to the world of cinematic tinsel: they don’t make you feel smarter; they make you think. Instead of making you proud with your supposed virtues, with your acuity and commitment, they show you how little we are in this world that surpasses us. Perhaps that is why necessary cinema—the real one, not the didactic one—almost always remains in the shadows. Check it now. He is an author to take into account, especially at election time, because they, those who believe they can do anything, need us to feel ready so they can treat us like fools.
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