Víctor Matellano presents us with his new documentary, ‘My beloved monster‘, a beautiful journey around the figure of Arturo De Bobadilla, director of’The Werewolf vs. the Templars (The Risen)‘, a dreamer who took a quarter of a century to finish his ambitious first film.
Live, monster, live!
Matellano, veteran archaeologist of the most fanciful European horror and responsible for the very interesting ‘Regresa el Cepa’ or ‘Claws! A journey through Spanish horror ‘, presents his best work with an affectionate and elaborate toy in the form of a documentary feature film, as real as life itself and as fanciful as the cinema.
Arturo De Bobadilla started his debut film, ‘The werewolf against the Templars (The resurrected ones)’, when a certain Álex de la Iglesia was starting ‘The day of the beast’. I don’t know if it sounds familiar to you. That first film would take 25 years to completeAlthough no one is entirely sure if that had to happen. Probably not the director himself, a guy who perhaps preferred to always have that nail to hold onto for almost half his life.
Although instead of nails here are the monsters that haunt us all that, in some way, allow us to hold on to our own sanity. Without them, without their company, we may be too alone. That is why this moving portrait between fiction and documentary with which the filmmaker makes a giant leap.
Based on an idea by Matellano and with the help of the script by Manuel Tallafé, ‘My adored Monster’ tells Bobadilla’s odyssey through anecdotes and distinguished guests who either were on the set or have suffered the consequences of seeing the movie. But far from what you might think, everything is treated with love and respect, which makes the time especially pleasant. Respectful hooliganism full of familiar faces and really funny anecdotes for euroterror fans.
“I was very clear about where it started and where it ended, but for the rest we let ourselves go, as Fellini said. It is a film that has been built on the fly, it has practically been written in editing, in continuous dialogue with the process. Post-production has been very long“.
The most important part of the film is in the trust between the two, between Matellano and Bobadilla. Respect and trust in a talk between the two, totally honest but it seemed unpredictable. “He talks to me at all times and he knew I was going to screw him with questions. What I didn’t know was how far he was willing to go. There is no script, he is sincere at all times. it’s real like life itself“.
As real as the reactions of Zoe Berriatúa, actor and director involved in the film and who takes advantage of continuing without wanting to know anything about his adventure to create a 100% true sketch, as Matellano tells us. “He got into the taxi and told the driver that he was paying him to leave it up the street, but I did not know what was happening, he was not wearing the helmets at the time. He really took off!“
That realism is palpable when guests like Carlos Areces or Nacho Guerreros watch ‘Los resucitado’ “live.” “They are real, they had never seen the movie and I put a few sequences on them. What they were saying was what they felt“. More amazing and honest is the case of Pedro Ruíz, who bothered to see the film and understand its idiosyncrasy in one of the interviews carried out by the” host “of the program, an Antonio Miguel Carmona who recovers an unknown radio passion for the vast majority.
In ‘My Beloved Monster’ the layers of fiction and reality mix and confuse until you don’t know which one is, resulting in a magnificent job on the red-hot nails that we have in life and the price to pay for keeping them burning. Pure passion.