Rodrigo Cortés returns with a new film and that in itself is already cause for celebration for Spanish cinema. But in addition, the man from Salamanca has surrounded himself in an unbeatable way to Exhausthis latest film proposal. Firstly because it adapts the disruptive novel of the same name by Enrique Rubio. Second, because he chose a cast of national cinema stars led by Mario Casas. And last (I’m sure there will be even more benefits when he gets back behind the cameras) but not least, he has as executive producer Martin Scorsese. Now finally, the production of Movistar + and RTVE launches a rampage promotional material which we have already been able to take advantage of.
Besides Casas, the cast of Exhaust It’s full of familiar faces like Anna Castillo, Josep María Pu, Blanca Portillo, José Sacristán, José García, David Lorente, Juanjo Puigcorbé, Albert Serra and Willy Toledo. Scorsese’s international presence might surprise us, but the Hispanic director has already repeatedly shown himself to be one of our most international filmmakers. From the singular Buriedwith Ryan Reynolds, until red lightswhere Cortés featured none other than Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, Elizabeth Olsen and Toby Jones.
Trailer for “Escape”
As funny as the trailer may have seemed to us, the preview labeling itself warns us in the preview that this is not a comedy, although it is not is not a drama either: East Exhaust. A surprisingly simple play on words considering the complexity of Rubio’s original approach to the book.
The story puts us in the shoes of a completely broken man who wants bureaucracy to take away the freedom that bothers him so much. That’s why he tracks everything a series of projects so that once and for all, they lock him up. However, at first the judge seems to have no way pronounce sentence against him. And at the start of the trailer, we can see him crashing his car into a banking center. Neither his psychologist nor his sister know what to do with his attitude, but they still try to help him as best they can. Thus, as he rightly assures, he is a citizen who pays his taxes and therefore has the right to deprive him of his capricious free will. Cortés freely adapts Rubio’s material, depicting a very unique blend of tones in his narrative. A story of which he has always been a faithful admirer and in fact, his own review appears in the publisher’s edition of The Sphere of Books.
“Enrique Rubio writes like you don’t write and thinks like you don’t think, which is what real writers do. “Escape” is like nothing (braco) and breaks all corsets,” Cortés wrote about the writer. Of course, Exhaust works in reverse Alcatraz, Life sentence and other stories about prisons, so at record level it is surely one of the Spanish films more original and particular from today 2024.
How did you end up at Scorsese?
In addition to being one of the most recognized filmmakers in the seventh art, Scorsese has production since the first decade of the 21st century. On the one hand, his own cinema and, on the other hand, various films like Malavita, The snowman, rough diamonds either Fragments of a woman. But this year, the Oscar-winning author has set his sights on cinema outside North American borders. The director of one of us Argentina produced The aroma of freshly cut grassthe Belgian These wonderful days and of course, the Spanish Exhaust. Now, how did the contact between Scorsese and Cortés take place?
The Spaniard and the New Yorker have known each other since the former interviewed him in 2018, on the occasion of the Princess of Asturias Prize for the Arts that this year fell into the hands of the spirit after taxi driver, wild bull either The last temptation of Christ. Cortes said RNE that when they met, Scorsese told him that he had seen all of his films and that he particularly liked his latest work, love in its place. The Italian-American director asked him to stay in touch and when he asked if he was working on a new script, he showed him the one for Exhaust. And the rest, well, that’s already the history of our cinema.
Exhaust will be released in theaters next October 31. Will she be a serious candidate for the Goya? Will Mario Casas achieve his second “big head” as a performer?
