Let’s be honest. The nominations for the Goya 2022 have shown that the 2021 has not been the brightest for Spanish cinema. But while perhaps some elections are more questionable than others, what this year has made clear is that the categories are a subterfuge of an election system that goes in predetermined packages for films that must go together and that the award statement it doesn’t mean much.
We could enter why some works that have tried to say something new have not been nominated for best pictureBut the traditional and boring approach has already been demonstrated time and again in the absurd choices of the Film Academy for our representation at the Oscars year after year. We are not here to change the trend or the politics of who should be in some of the major categories.
The phantom obligation to link the categories ‘Best film and direction’
However, the selections in some categories are especially striking for their dubious logic, in some cases challenging the semantics itself. We could ask the voters face to face the explanation to fit ‘The good boss’ in the special effects category, but the presence of 3 out of 4 supporting actors of the same in a category is sufficiently revealing of the will of the institution with respect to the film. Of course, the presence of ‘Parallel Mothers’ — all due respect to its author burden — in the category of Best Photography, with that digital aspect, of a German desktop film, draws attention.
But in a matter of direction, the political movement creates a conflict directly with the meaning of what is being rewarded. We do not fall into the category of ‘Best New Director’, because in that case we can understand that a newcomer film is awarded as a whole, revelation is valued and the person behind it is rewarded. But in the case of the general category, what is being awarded?
Fernando Leon de Aranoa by ‘The good boss’
Icíar Bollaín by ‘Maixabel’
Pedro Almodovar by ‘Parallel Mothers’
Manuel Martin Cuenca by ‘The daughter’
The degradation of the term “direction”
Only a name slips in that is not already in a better movie, that of Martín Cuenca for ‘La hija’. In other cases it also matches the best script. It can be understood that when the film is awarded, it may be a lack of courtesy not to give the statuette to a proper name, and that a man with a suit and a lot of money who we do not know goes out to look for the bronze instead of the creative soul of the herself. We can also understand that in case of conflict in delivery the wildcard “address” may be used to distribute the prizes and solve the ballot.
However,we will not have become rudely accustomed to using the category in an absolutely abstract way? When we enter the maligned sections of “technical categories” it seems that we are talking about a minor league, about recognitions designed so that the authors of the winning films return home from the gala depressed and with an inferiority complex, what a failure! “I have taken 4 Goyas, but only in the technical categories”. However, there is a much more testable and pure truth in makeup, special effects, costumes, or production design.
As seasoned filmmakers, won’t you Almodóvar, Bollaín or León de Aranoa that these films have unobtrusive, furniture-saving directions and are far from their best work in some cases, with the comfort of established authors who dedicate themselves to placing the camera without hunger or versatility for their visual narrative? Again the question arises as to what is really being rewarded in these cases. It might be strange to bring some names to the fore for films that may not deserve other awards, but if we stick to the terminology of this category, certain absences are not understood.
Return of the Quinqui cinema and a large-scale international heist
There is no way to understand that ‘The laws of the border’ does not have recognition of its remarkable road sequences, at a dizzying level and resolved with a taste for cinema to which it pays homage who seems to understand the gears of vintage with the most current and technically competent look. Daniel Monzón is at an enviable level of camera handling. Also impressive is the look of great commercial cinema of a recovered and very firm Jaume Balagueró in ‘Way Down’.
The Catalan is not only capable of orchestrating great action scenes against the clock, worthy of great show works to take to multiplexes in any country, but some of the most massive pictures ever seen in our cinema, with a Madrid collected in a majestic way and an enviable mastery of space, in addition to offering us images with the best desirable special effect in times of Covid-19, the crowds of real people without using duplication programs.
Despite being somewhat leaden, Manichean and ideologically biased, it is obvious to anyone who Igor Legarreta’s ambitious visual packaging for ‘All the moons’ is very noteworthy; internationally recognized by critics, it is well above the television ‘Akelarre’, which so many Goyas achieved last year. The very entertaining ‘Bajo Cero’ not only has a visual finish higher than the average of 2021, but its action scenes and the pulse of Lluís Quílez should raise the colors to more than one.
A Valencian Polanski and an inconvenient critical success
‘La abuela’, nominated for special effects, has a very careful Paco Plaza address, with an oppressive staging and artie, rich in shades of darkness and mortuary colors that walk hand in hand with the thematic coherence of the film, reminiscent of Polanski and the cinema of the seventies almost unpublished in our recent panorama. Without being so spectacular, the way in which ‘Destello Bravío’ collects the almost dreamlike space of Emptied Spain is, to say the least, mentionable.
You could play the card that the Academy still does not like genre cinema and with a commercial vocation, the eternal complex that prevents highlighting something that is not a drama, committed dramedia or auteur cinema. But we are not only talking about cinema with the intention of entertainment, there is a case like the film by Rodrigo Cortés’Love instead‘, recently released, which has garnered two nominations for costumes and production while critics are raising it as one of the great films of the year. Has it arrived too late to share the cake or were there no free slots from the beginning?
It is not necessary to pay attention to films that do not fall within the spectrum of interest of the Academy, nor is it necessary to claim names that deserve more or less, but if we are going to designate a category as direction, it is not possible to value only the script within of ‘The Good Pattern’, the interpretations and the authorial aura of ‘Parallel Mothers’, the emotional and political content of ‘Maixabel’, but from time to time take into account some of the ambition of the visual language, the narrative force, the personality of the shots and the staging of tremendously valid names, especially in an especially faded year for our cinematography.