The documentary of Pere Marzo recovers the period of
splendor in which the Balcázar Studios shot dozens of Western films.
Alberto Gadea in an image from “Goodbye Ringo”
La Vanguardia
By Astrid Meseguer
3/19/2019
A man hums the song ‘Sabor a mí’ while driving on a
lonely road. After a while he decides to stop the car and observe the wild
landscape around him. Suddenly, the screen seems to look back to relive images
of a western shot in the same place years ago. In that same moment, the man in
the vehicle is assaulted by the soundtrack of the past and merges in an
exchange of shots with some outlaws.
The start of “Goodbye Ringo” could not be more fun. The
first long documentary by Pere Marzo (Barcelona, 1988) invites us to discover
an exciting story that has fallen into oblivion, the one in which Esplugas City
was the birthplace of the spaghetti western between 1964 and 1972. Nothing more
and nothing less than some sixty feature films were produced by the extinct
Balcázar Studios in that fictional town located in Esplugues de Llobregat, of
which now there is only one sad palm tree as the only memory that remains
standing and that welcomed the site. “Pistoleros de Arizona” (Gunmen from
Arizona) was the first of a batch of tapes like “Crónica de un atraco” and “Le
llamaban calamidad” that came out of that great set with an air of spirit of
Hollywood.
One of the towns of far west
in Esplugas City (Colibrí Studio)
Fruitful cooperation between Spain and Italy
flooded galloping cowboy theaters led by directors such as Duccio Tessari and
Alberto di Martino and starred subgenre stars such as Fernando Sancho, Giuliano
Gemma, Robert Woods, Van Heflin and Broderick Crowford. Although a young
Klaus Kinki with his imperturbable face of evil doing his own paraded through
the streets of that city with a West flavor.
The American far west settled in Esplugas City,
on the outskirts of Barcelona, just as it would happen in the desert landscapes
of Almeria or in the Madrid town of Hoyo de Manzanares. Spain adopted as
its own the classic genre par excellence of the United States. It was a
time of splendor that infected the magic of the seventh art to many locals, who
saw the opportunity to work in the industry and learn the trade at forced
marches in the absence of the instructions of professionals. The films
were made quickly and at a low cost.
Marzo nurtures his work with an agile montage that plays
to relive chapters of the past through the testimonies of five protagonists.
Among them, Alberto Gadea, stunt coordinator who shot more than 50 films in the
town of the Catalan west in his youth. He dreamed of being an actor, but he had
to make do with small roles and some wounds of someone who throws himself to
the ground in full action without having properly calibrated the scope of the
fall. Result: a broken wrist that did not prevent him from working the next
day. The love for the western could do with everything. "Movies are made
out of love, not money," recalls another character.
That air of nostalgia is very present in “Goodbye Ringo”.
And it is that the western made in Spain left its mark and marked deeply the
existence of many young people eager to live in their own flesh the entrails of
a cinema that no longer exists. Gadea himself, Giorgio Capitani, Paco Marín,
Romolo Guerrieri or Maurizio Amati remind us of a fascinating past in which
good and evil looked at each other, bullets were intercrossed and revenge was
felt. All this within the framework of an enclave dressed in hats, boots and
pistols that lasts with force in the memory of these survivors, although not so
much in the collective of our cinematography.
Gadea during the filming of a film by the Balcázar
Studios in Espulgas City
The documentary reflects on an era, a way of making films
with respect, admiration and the longing for a time that deeply affected many
people. In a way it is a tribute to those who participated in all of that dusty
gear for almost a decade that ended up jumping through the air without a trap
or cardboard by decree of the Franco regime in 1972. But the best thing is that
the March camera gives the story a fine sense of humor that the viewer
appreciates among so many mixed feelings and seasoned in the form of fragments
of spaghetti westerns, photographs of the filming, news of the time and a
voiceover that is basting the story slowly.
Goodbye Ringo, worthy of the public prize for the best
documentary at the Sitges festival, opened March 19 in the Texas theaters in
Barcelona and afterwards there was a subsequent talk. The work will be screened
again in Texas on March 26 and April 2 at the same time and later will travel
to Sant Feliu de Llobregat (Cinema Baix, 20h, April 5) and the Filmoteca de
Zaragoza (2 and 3 of may).
“The film reflects on an era, a way of making films with
respect, admiration and the longing for a time that deeply affected many people.”
No comments:
Post a Comment