Thanks to No Time to Die, the twenty-fifth installment of the James Bond saga, with which Daniel Craig, for the last time, steps into the shoes of the legendary 007, I have discovered Matera, a fascinating city in southern Italy. Known as the cittá dei Sassi (the city of stones), Matera is a town of cobbled streets, houses carved into the rock, and underground churches of remote origin and unsettling beauty. Just for the scenes shot in Matera, it is already worth going to the cinema to see the latest 007 film, although there are many more reasons to do so, as Bernat Dedéu explained days ago in La Punyalada, right here, in The New Barcelona Post.
I have always been a big fan of 007 movies. As a child, I was especially fascinated by the gadgets that Q put into Bond's hands. All those artifacts that, when it seemed that 007 had no escape, helped him to circumvent danger or take down the villain of the moment. I recall the jetpack with which Sean Connery managed to escape Spectre in Thunderball and the laser watch that Pierce Brosnan used to cut through the steel floor of a moving train in Goldeneye.
I like to immerse myself in Bond films because they are sophisticated and elegant—what can I tell you, in real life there are already enough Torrent! The 007 saga has set trends: fashion, design, graphic design... The soundtracks are also memorable. Just to name a few especially delicious ones: Skyfall, by Adele; Goldfinger, performed by the wonderful Shirley Bassey; GoldenEye, written by Bono and The Edge and performed by Tina Turner, or Die Another Day, by Madonna.
I like to immerse myself in Bond films because they are sophisticated and elegant—what can I tell you, in real life there are already enough Torrent!Another of the main attractions of Bond films are the settings where the action takes place. London is, of course, the starting point for most of the adventures of this agent in Her Majesty's service, but 007 is a very well-traveled spy. He fights evil wherever necessary and, therefore, the films he has starred in over more than half a century are also a succession of spectacular settings across the planet.
Only in No Time to Die, Bond takes us to Jamaica – curiously where Ian Fleming wrote the 007 books, this location wants to be a tribute to the father of the creature – and Norway – the film begins in an isolated house, surrounded by snow and ice, on the outskirts of Oslo – in addition to Italy and the United Kingdom. By the way, the Santiago de Cuba where Craig shares a scene with a wonderful Ana de Armas is, in reality, a set built in the Pinewood studios in London.
Bond travels around the world, but, curiously, he has never set foot in Barcelona. Not even for a layover. In none of the twenty-five films of the saga is there a single scene that takes place in the Catalan capital. It's strange because Barcelona is a great set for cinema and advertising, but it seems that the most famous spy in cinema is not thrilled by it. In For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore was in Madrid. More than a decade later, a new Bond mission – then already embodied by Brosnan – brought him back to Spain, specifically, to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao for the filming of The World Is Not Enough. 007 has also set foot on Spanish soil on other occasions, but only to shoot scenes that supposedly took place in countries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. However, Barcelona not even by chance.
In none of the twenty-five films of the saga is there a single scene that takes place in the Catalan capitalSo well he would look chasing some villain through Park Güell or escaping a shootout by rappelling from the top of the Agbar Tower. The Forum Building could perfectly be the headquarters of a dark international corporation dedicated to producing a virus capable of annihilating all humanity and, if a large explosion were necessary due to script requirements, the Palau Nacional could be blown up – digitally, of course. Where would 007 stay? I think at the Mandarin Oriental. It also just occurred to me that,if the owners of Seat put a little money into production, we could get Bond to drive, at full speed, a futuristic electric Cupra, down Via Laietana, to catch the villain of the movie before he set sail aboard a luxurious yacht moored in Marina Port Vell.Are you not seeing it yet?
I am convinced that many Barcelona fans, like myself, of 007 would also thoroughly enjoy participating as extras in a possible new installment of the saga set in Barcelona. I only hope that if, finally, the agent created by Fleming one of these days walks the streets of the city, the result will be better than our Woody Allen film. Definitely, Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona is not the best work of the New York director.