Javier Solana was appointed Minister of Culture in Felipe González's first socialist government in 1982. Shortly after, he coincided at a public event with filmmaker Luis García Berlanga, then still president of the National Film Archive. Solana approached him and told him that he had recently signed something about him that he couldn't remember. Pilar Miró, also newly appointed director general of Cinematography, witnessed the scene and pointed out to the minister: he had signed his dismissal.
Berlanga reproduced this peculiar episode of his biography with other protagonists in his 1993 film Todos a la cárcel (Everybody to Jail). The scene can be enjoyed in the cinema room reproduced in the exhibition Interior Berlanga, which can be visited at CaixaFòrum until April 20. The exhibition is a tribute to the director of Bienvenido, Mister Marshall on the centenary of his birth.
Interior Berlanga is a journey through the life and work of one of the most important Spanish film directors, with iconic films such as the aforementioned and Calabuch, El verdugo, La escopeta nacional, La vaquilla and París-Tombuctú, among others. The exhibition allows visitors to discover the most intimate and often most unknown Berlanga, as well as his fears and fetishes. For example, and although it is a fact that the filmmaker never hid, a large part of the public will discover that after the Civil War he enlisted in the Blue Division. He did so to avoid repression, because his father was a civil governor during the Republic.
Among his fears, loneliness and death are discovered. The exhibition explains that the inclusion of death in his films was for the filmmaker a way of denying it. And he did so through humor as a survival tool. Erotomania also forms part of the intimate Berlanga that shows his obsessions and sexual fetishes.
Settings such as his office, a school from the early 20th century, and an old cinema help the viewer penetrate the personality of a Berlanga who is also superstitious and hypochondriac. And his shyness. This is reflected in a phrase by the director reproduced in the exhibition: "Precisely, one of the reasons that pushed me to choose my profession was to seek protection for my shyness by hiding on the other side of the camera, enjoying the anonymity that directors had at that time, eclipsed by the stardom of the performers."
Perhaps it was his shy character that pushed him to undervalue himself, at least when he spoke of himself in interviews. He maintained that he was not sufficiently prepared, that he had difficulties with creation. Of course, that was not true. His filmography is a constant demonstration of his mastery. Despite himself, he was more than prepared and qualified to turn his films into authentic works of art. His mastery of cinematographic technique has its exponent in the art of the tracking shot. Berlanga mastered it like no one else. It is a scene that is shot with a single camera that moves on wheels and at the same time moves away from and closer to the characters.
The filmmaker liked long tracking shots with many actors, which required long and meticulous preparation that lasted for days, until perfection was achieved in the choreographic synchronicity that the actors had to execute. Precisely, one of the strong points of the exhibition is that it allows visitors to experience the tracking shot themselves in a room prepared for it. The experience is guided through a video by his son José Luis.
Berlanga's films are also a journey through the history of post-war Spain, late Francoism and the transition, with some incursions into the Civil War. Always with the disillusioned tone and without dogmatism acquired in his youth experiences in the Civil War and on the Russian front in World War II. Although that did not prevent him from transmitting his critical view of the country's society. The exhibition ends with a tribute to his homeland, Valencia, and its great festival, the Fallas. A boat with wood about to be set on fire and videos of fireworks in the background bid farewell to the visitor.
Interior Berlanga is one of the great exhibitions of the season in Barcelona. Don't miss it.