“That you come to explain that everything is over,
that you have to say that you don’t want to see me.”
This is not the official story of The Planetsis neither a biopic nor the portrait of how one of the most important groups in the country almost dissolved. This could have happened or not.but that’s what usually happens with legends.
At the end of the 90s, Granada (“the only city with a bomb name”, as drummer Eric Jiménez would say) was experiencing an artistic and cultural boom. The group is experiencing its most delicate moment. May, ‘the bassist’, has just broken up with the band and ‘the guitarist’ is in a spiral of self-destruction. Meanwhile, ‘the singer’ faces the composition process of what will be his third album: ‘A week in the engine of a bus’an album that will transform the country’s music scene.
But, this is not just a movie about The Planets. The new of Isaki Lacuesta (‘One year, one night’) is a tribute to friendship, music and an entire generation. “The film tells things that really happenedthings that happened and we have modified, and things that are totally made up. Los Planetas are the first to have fed their legend through their songs,” the director explains to laSexta. “I like to think that those things happened, that Jota and Eric were together until six… as the song says “, Add.
In a 4:3 format, typical of the time, the film shows the innards of the creative process and immerses the viewer in an emotional whirlwind (with some drugs throughout). And the fact is that “in this story there are ghosts and vampires, there is love and catastrophe, there is Granada magical neorealism and science fiction.”
“Because there will be hundreds for each one of us”
All the musicthe songs from Los Planetas and their third album, It is recorded live. In fact, the band members are professional musicians from the Granada scene. All except Dani Ibáñez (‘the singer’), an actor with a family in Granada and musical knowledge. Crystalline he gets into the skin of the ‘guitarist’ and Mario Fernandez (Mafo)who has played with Eric and Los Planetas, plays the ‘drummer’.
An original idea, that the actors were musicianswhich came from director Jonás Trueba (who was going to take charge of the project initially), and which Lacuesta wanted to keep when he finally kept the film.
“We decided that the songs would have subtitles when we started writing the script. One of the obvious difficulties of musical cinema is ensuring that the music does not stop the story, that the narrative continues to advance while the songs appear. While they play they are fighting, they are wanting… It would be a fantasy for the audience to sing in the room,” the Catalan director tells laSexta.
Love, frustration, breakup, addiction… During the film, the camera “levitates” and responds to the emotional state of each of the characters. Lacuesta thus flees from traditional biopics, from what he calls “peana films”, in which a hieratic version of the musician or band in question is given. “It’s my way of being faithful to the spirit of Los Planetas, the least official group in history. It didn’t make any sense to make an official film,” details Isaki.
‘Second Prize’ also tells us about lorca and his ‘Poet in New York’of Morente and his ‘Omega’ – an album that is almost religion -, from Holy Week, from the caves of Sacromonte. He shows a city in which, at that time, people did not sleep at night and whose music scene was concentrated in clubs and clandestine clubs. The level of reproduction is such (at least what did happen) that Isaki Lacuesta’s team has reconstructed the legendary Ground Floorthe concert venue where Los Planetas began playing and which years ago was consumed by a fire.
What’s more, all the instruments in the film have been used and belong to professional musicians; in fact, the guitar that ‘the singer’ (Dani Ibáñez) uses during the film It is the same one that Jota recorded with that third Los Planetas album. Takuro Takeuchi, director of photography, He had the bulbs changed in all the streetlights. (now they are LED) from the streets of Granada that appear on the scene. And there are things that did not happen, but the scenario in which they take place could not be more real. Like the vinyls of the legendary store Discos Bora-Borathe groups that Jota and Florent listened to in those 90s.
The movie that Florent and May have not seen
But, if this is not a Planets movie, What role did the band have during filming? “I got together with Jota and Florent after accepting the project and I explained to them that I wanted to make a film about a vampire and a ghost. I didn’t want to make a movie about his true story because it’s impossible to know what it was. I wanted to make a film about the legend of the group,” the director points out to questions from laSexta. Isaki made them a promise: “he would make a film with all the love and admiration,” but it would be his project, his idea. They accepted.
After filming, Isaki and his team traveled to Granada to show them the film. “Florent preferred not to see her, May didn’t see her either., although he sent a very affectionate message to the leading actress. Jota has seen it twice and it is very interesting to see what he recognizes himself in and what things are still in an area that he has to process,” explains the director, who remains a fan of the group “surprisingly” after filming the film.
And it is that (as Los Planetas remember) “Lorca said that you cannot escape from Graná, that you can only leave through the sky”the same sky that Isaki Lacuesta has now decided to capture in ‘Second Prize’.
.
Source: Lasexta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
