Diario de Valladolid
By Javier Pérez Andrés
7/27/2019
As a native defacto of Peñaranda de Duero, Arandino,
although from a family outside the vineyards and wine making. He works with
youth tourism, closely linked to summer camps in Burgos. He is a geologist and
nature lover. When he studied in Salamanca he visited the Filmoteca de Castilla
y León two days a week, but he did not like western movies. Today, together
with a group of gunmen, he has gotten thousands of people to value the western
and, despite the fear that cemeteries gave him until a few days ago, he has
nailed thousands of crosses in the happiest “Sad Hill” of the Arlanza lands ...
Of the three he is "the Good."
Question.- What came first: the mountains of Carazo, the
limestone rocks or the sequences of The Good, the bad and the Ugly?
Answer.- The sequences of the film. They monopolize
everything now, but living an hour from Carazo and San Carlos, I had never been
there. It was before the movie that the mountains. David Alba, a partner in the
association, slapped me into reality and opened my eyes to tell me that the
cemetery of Sad Hill, in which a scene from the film takes place, is in the
province of Burgos.
Q.- When was the
famous cemetery resurrected?
A.- In the summer of 2013 the first two graves are laid,
in a symbolic way. We dealt with Silos City Council to request permission and
in the summer 2014 the project was taken to the Junta de Castilla y León, which
gave us the authorization. On October 3, 2015 we started with the
reconstruction of the Sad Hill cemetery, the “Sad Hill”. We wanted, with the
proximity of the 50th anniversary, to rebuild the cemetery and value the entire
area as a place where the film was filmed.
Q.- Four years
have passed. Did you imagine the media impact?
R.- When doing something like this is you are optimistic,
but we did not think that at any time we would get any support. At the
beginning it was difficult to begin rolling it out, but once started there was
no one to stop it. We currently have between 4,500 and 5,000 crosses.
Q.- Why did the
writers, the film's producers choose that location so concrete that today it is
protected as a natural space?
R. - The explanation is given by another film of
warriors, Templars, Moors and Christians. A movie about Fernán González that
was made a few years before, in 1962, and in which Antonio Pérez Ginés
participated. He is the one who discovered the landscapes of Burgos before
starting to shoot The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Q.- How many
visitors does Sad Hill Cemetery attract?
A.- Approximately 10,000 a month in the peak season.
Throughout the year, about 60,000. If we had not recovered the cemetery, fans
of the film could find the area by searching on Google, but it would be at most
20 people a month.
Q. - It is still a
paradox that a cemetery has resurrected a region, right?
R. - An absolute paradox. It is the most lively cemetery
on the planet and the only one in the world where you can visit your own grave.
It is not necessary to take it as a joke, it is true that we are in one of the
areas with the greatest depopulation problems. This does not solve the problem
by itself, but it serves as a claim for people to know this place. Sad Hill is
a living cemetery in a territory that dies, it almost looks like the script of
another movie.
Q.- How do you
carry that of being “children of a thousand parents”?
R. - It is a very elegant way to insult, but we wear it
with great pride because it is a glorious phrase of the film.
Q.- How many of
those who go to the cemetery and enjoy the sequences have not seen the first
part of the film?
R. - People are still coming who have not seen it,
although they are the least. I love that they say it and that they like what we
have done. I recommend that you see it, at least the end.
Q.- Do the shots
of your revolver compete with the songs of the friars of Silos?
R. - There is no competition, they are complementary and
another resource in the area to come and visit us. Moreover, I would love to be
able to shoot one day in the monastery and dressed as gunmen and for the monks
to come to the cemetery to do something.
Q.- Who would you
like to put a cross in the Sad Hill cemetery?
A. - Not all crosses are the same but I would like that
when Clint Eastwood dies we can put a special grave on Sad Hill.
Q.- How many times have you been congratulated?
R. - Almost the same ones that have told us that we are
upset.
Q.- What phrase of
the movie do you keep?
R.- I would choose this: “The world has two kinds of
people. The one’s with the loaded guns and the ones who dig. You dig.”
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