Opposite a priori poles are not only attractive, they can also complement each other perfectly and create beautiful creatures. The penultimate show: Sentimos las molestias (Movistar Plus +, starting tomorrow, April 8), a new series by screenwriters Juan Cavestany and Álvaro Fernández Armero after the acclaimed Vergüenza.
Cavestany is known, above all, as a brilliant explorer of the so-called posthumous, in which the grace of something can lie in his lack of grace or a determined commitment to the uncomfortable or fleeting. From this idea arose film UFOs such as People in Sites, That Sensation (hand in hand with Pablo Hernando and Julian Genisson) and the hilarious but also very sad Un optical effect. For his part, Fernández Armero, a member of that generation of directors who brought fresh air to Spanish cinema in the 1990s (he debuted with the legendary Todo es mentira), has specialized in a comedy with a more popular and clearly commercial vocation. . His latest theatrical release, Si yo fuera rico, was the third best-grossing Spanish production of 2019.
When these two friends write and direct together, iconoclasm and efficiency merge in mysterious ways to give rise to hits like Shame, and now Sentimos las molestias, a little less oriented towards pure nonsense than the previous one, more dramatic, or «almost more drama than comedy, like so many comedies on current television », as Fernández Armero himself points out in a conversation with El Periódico, from the same publishing group as the Diari de Girona, linked to his colleague Cavestany.
Another strange couple
In the series, Antonio Resines and Miguel Rellán are Rafael and Rafa, two old (sorry) friends who try to continue living as young people in an evolved society that can sometimes be made uphill for them. Forty years ago, people didn’t talk to emoticons (“cartoons” or “emoticons,” as they say) or anything, it seems, if they asked a much younger subordinate for a kiss. Rafael, acclaimed conductor, believes himself a bit entitled to everything. Rafa is a little less paid than himself, but he lives in his own mental space, where his old rock band Cuidado con el perro and his eponymous hit are still much more relevant than they really are. After the first one has an accident, his friend moves in with him to take care of him. Thus arises another of those strange couples doomed to understand that they have given so much play to the history of humor. Both Resines, who coincided with Fernández Armero in Si yo fuera rico, and Rellán, who repeats with the tandem after Vergüenza, seem born for these roles. “But the first idea, before there was anything, was to do a series with Resines and Rellán. That was the whole project, the whole plot, what we wrote on a paper napkin. Then came the arduous process of writing. It took us a long time to find out where all this was going, “said Fernández Armero.
These new septuagenarians
It all came down to two characters who represent a generation: these new septuagenarians who rebel over time, “who have their jobs and friendships, who go to the movies and drink more than they sometimes” , says Fernández Armero. “They don’t resign themselves to being at home with the club. There was no series that reflected this generation. At the heart of it all was a contradiction, Cavestany explains: “Age as something that does not weigh and, at the same time, weighs a lot, either because of the gaze of others or because the body begins to give signals.” As in other Cavestany projects, minimalist humor can coexist with maximum pain. After all, we are talking about a series that has death and illness among its main themes.
After the coma suffered by Resins due to Covid-19, certain scenes acquire an extra layer of resonance. Fernández Armero: “What happened to Resines was a pretty big shock. We had just done a series on the subject of death all the time. There was even a plot dedicated to this, but for Rellán, who had also just suffered a terrifying Covid. From a distance, it is believed that if this series were Twin Peaks, Cavestany would be David Lynch, the creator of rare ideas, and Fernandez Armero would be more like Mark Frost, who orders the ideas of the mad genius to a structure assimilable. Of course, from the inside they don’t see it all the same. Cavestany: “We’re not so opposed either. We know that what we are known for is different, but we are not so aware of the differences. And roles are sometimes exchanged, in fact. They are both united, for example, by their love of pettiness, “very funny for comedy,” says Fernández Armero. In fact, there is a scene of death and attempted escape to the hospital that seems to be written by Larry David for the best days of Seinfeld, another comedy about good friends who can be bad people. (Álvaro): “I swallowed Seinfeld on DVD as if it were the Bible. And Larry David too. And Cavestany adds: “We have been consumers of these series and we have read them carefully. They are like a vindication of those who are not funny. We are very attracted to this comedy that revolves around things that are a bit dangerous or problematic.
El «hit» impossible
The importance of Cuidado con el perro, the song that made Rafa famous one day and of which he is still proud, almost too proud, cannot be underestimated. Sounds in original version and unexpected trap revision. Cavestany: “A person who is now 70 and so old could have had a group in the eighties. Our co-producer Alicia [Yubero] I had contact with Suburbano, to whom we explained the series and gave them this slogan: “We want a hit by a musician from the 80’s who combines rock with a naive political discourse, like a naive rebellion.” And they took a hit in the sleeve, overnight. Beware, that is sticky.