Bitter, like a shot going down the throat; wild, like its protagonists. The cinema of Eloy de la Iglesia (Zarautz, 1944 – Madrid, 2006) was a genre in itself. Films fIVE written from the darkest suburbs of Madrid to talk about fierce loves, marginality, homosexuality and junkie lyricism. For four decades, the Basque filmmaker opted for a realistic and dissident cinema that explored the life that took place on the margins. A diverse social chronicle that left titles such as The Vallecas pond (1987), Navajeros (1980), Peak (1983) o Something Bitter in the mouth (1969).
An attraction for the marginality which went from being the plot of his films to being intertwined with his life. Something that had a lot to do with the way he got involved with the actors in his films, disinherited from those he chose in a casting Street map through the most sordid places in the capital. Thus he found one of his fetish actors, Jose Luis Manzano, whom he met at the end of the seventies in a pool hall frequented by young hustlers to whom the Gipuzkoan director went in search of boys to sleep with. From that crossroads, Manzano got the opportunity to star in his first film, Navajeros, and Eloy de la Iglesia that of getting entangled in the consumption of drugs and in a relationship of emotional and toxic dependence towards the actor, who would end up finding dead years later.
El Pico, Trainspotting a la española
Before that tragedy, several tapes emerged from the Manzano tandem and the Church that would eventually become cult films. One of them was Peak, one of the biggest blockbusters of the moment. A film that offered an explosive cocktail of drugs, sex and violence. Set in the Bilbao of the 80s, the film tells the story of a head of the Civil Guard who discovers that his son Paco, whom he hopes will enter a military academy, is a heroin addict. The action begins when Paco, played by Jose Luis Manzano, runs away from home taking his father’s gun.
Sharp themes, characters played by non-professional actors and a script that is structured with a colloquial and rude language that did not help, at that time, to make these films seduce critics too much. However, the public received them in a different way and, in recent years, many directors are recovering the essence of that genre. An example of this is the latest film by Daniel Monzón, The laws of the border, a film that will be released in 2021 and that is inspired by the quinqui cinema of which Eloy de la Iglesia and José Antonio de la Loma they are maximum exponents.
Spanish Version La 2 2012
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Eloy de la Iglesia, 15 years after his death
The Peak can be seen this Friday, starting at 22.00h, in History of our cinema in a double session that will also feature the screening of the second feature film by the Gipuzkoan director, Something bitter in the mouth (1969). An allegorical film, released during the Franco regime, in which issues that will become recurring in the cinema of Eloy de la Iglesia. Through these two tapes, the program presented by Elena Sanchez will pay tribute to the Basque director, of whom this year marks the 15th anniversary of his death.
A colloquium in which Eduardo Fuembuena, author of the book ‘Far from here’, a biography of José Luis Manzano, protagonist of the first film, will participate; Eduardo Mendicutti, writer, author among others of the novel ‘Los novios búlgaros’, which Eloy de la Iglesia took to the cinema; and Luis Parés, cinematographic historian and collaborator of the program.
Fuembuena, Mendicutti and Luis Parés, in this week’s discussion
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