For Carlos Saura, the family was the core from which everything could be analyzed. That’s how he stuck his scalpel into Franco’s Spain and thwarted censorship. Through these groups I was able to talk about a historical moment, a society and the principles that governed it. Around a table, during a meal, there can be more socio-political analysis than in a debate in Parliament. In the millennial generation, the one that is approaching or has just passed forty, that has experienced two crises and that has seen how the dreams that had been sold to them have fallen down the toilet in most cases, the couple and friends have replaced the family.
It is now easier to X-ray society through sentimental and affective relationships than to focus on a family which, for economic reasons and a change in mentality, is no longer the ultimate goal for many. And this is where New Years finds the raw material to become one of the great Spanish series of this year. Through a story that covers ten years of a couple’s life, the fiction created by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Paula Fabra and Sara Cano – presented at the Venice Film Festival – tells not only about two characters, but about many young people like them.
Each episode focuses on New Year’s Eve of a different year. And on that day, we see how their relationship evolves. There is the typical Gaussian curve that is drawn in every relationship – rise, stagnation and fall – but told with an honesty and naturalism that is difficult to see in fiction when talking about something like love. What is interesting is that by counting each day, the ellipses between each episode force the viewer to fill in the information. Thanks to the clever scripts of the creative trio, it is not difficult, but it is difficult for it to flow without seeming forced or underlined. Two colossal performances contribute to this, those of Iría del Río and Francesco Carril.
Coincidentally or not, Sorogoyen’s filmmaking career – he directed four episodes of a series in which he was initially going to be less involved – also marks the tenth anniversary of Stockholm (2013), up to this series. And over the course of this decade, we’ve seen him grow as a filmmaker to the point of reaching that waste of tension that is Like beasts. But this is the first time that the viewer can clearly see the author in what he has staged. It is his most intimate work and can respond to that vital moment reached after a few films and series.
A moment that coincides with its international expansion. When the director of the Venice Festival, Alberto Barbera, announced the series, he defined Sorogoyen as the most important filmmaker in Spain today after Pedro Almodóvar. Coincidentally, they are both here. Sorogoyen admits that he was “very excited”, but downplays its importance. “I don’t consider it true, because first of all you can’t measure it, and I also think that if I had taken someone else’s series, I might have said the same thing. It’s a phrase that looks very good at a festival when you decide to bet on a director, but it’s not measurable. So I don’t believe it, but it really excited me. “It’s very beautiful”, he says from Venice, accompanied by the two creators of the series.
With them, it was the first time he changed Isabel Peña in the script – with whom he returns in his next film – and the experience was so good that they already have in mind to do more projects together. He defines it as “something very personal”. “It’s a series that talks about me,” he says bluntly. This means that he ended up getting more involved than he initially thought. “I’ve shot more episodes than I initially thought – the rest is directed by David Martín de los Santos and Sandra Romero – and I’ve been there for three years, so it’s true that I’ve ended up doing a lot of my role, but I think that’s my way of being. I think that can happen to me in any job I do because I’m passionate about what I do and because I don’t see it any other way,” he says about his approach to directing, but stressing once again that this series has “taken a lot out” of him.
I ended up doing a lot of my own, but I think it’s just the way I am, because I’m passionate about what I do and I can’t imagine it any other way.
Rodrigo Sorogoyen
— Director
Sorogoyen defined the series as “a cinematographic work”, once again opening the question of the rating of audiovisual creations, something to which he believes that the press gives more importance than the authors themselves. Sara Cano and Paula Fabra come to support them, who also think that there is not much difference. “We do not write a film differently from a series. We tell a story and we write it. And the difference is made according to the type of story. Now, we have written a series in five months, and it is not the same as when you spend three years on a series and you rewrite as many chapters as happened with this one,” explains Paula Fabra.
Sorogoyen believes that it is a subject that “is in the conversation, but I think it is more for you journalists than for the creators, and that is normal.” “For our part, we do not see this battle. Maybe you ask other people who write other series and they answer something else, but we have been honest and sincere, and it is as if we would have done exactly the same thing. If I had proposed a film instead of a series, we would have done it. I faced it in the same way,” he emphasizes.
In his portrait, there are winks that help to temporally contextualize each episode, which does not use signs to recall the year in which they take place. Pills that also serve to create a political context on which Sara Cano and Paula Fabra made it clear that they “had to be there without it being very obvious.” “It had to be organic, because in reality, with your partner, on December 31, you don’t talk about Trump, it’s something we wanted to put in and in the end, it doesn’t come out. And that was important, but we didn’t want it to be left aside,” explains Sara Cano.
It was also important that the houses represent young people who share an apartment or can barely afford a one-room apartment. They wanted houses “that were not above the social or economic level of the protagonists, but that were also inhabited houses, full of details,” say the writers, who also admit that at first they were forced to work with Sorogoyen, and that they arrived very nervous at the meetings, but he quickly put them at ease. “He makes four jokes, sometimes a little crude as he is, and I think it was cool because he shared a lot with us. Not only the strictest part of the work, but also their concerns, their joys, and we are very happy about that. He is very affectionate and that is super important at work,” they add.
Perhaps you will also notice something of that decade as a director, even if “you can’t change the basis.” “I am a loving, sociable person, who wants to be with people he loves, but it is true that the typical tension of a 30-year-old director who makes his first films, and I am sure I have not noticed it, but it makes you feel less relaxed and therefore more tense. More irascible. But I don’t remember any chicken in any shoot, to be honest. You can be more or less angry because things don’t work out. But obviously, the relaxation with which I now approach a shoot is perceptible.
