One day an electric farmer interviews what in the future he would accuse of firefighter bullfighter of art. It was 2004 and the farmer worked day and night on the farm and in the disco. Everything is neon in life. And every brick is a wall. He was like a wifi-lightning rod: he detected everything that moved and could change life in this valley of mournful-laughing tears. And the signal came: Albert Serra, a guy from beyond who had just made his first film, supposedly Martian, but we discovered that he was an earthling. The high-tension line is already up.
Josep Bonjorn (Bonjo), the electrified farmer, is from Mollerussa, Pla d'Urgell. Albert Serra is from Banyoles, Pla de l'Estany. Square and mirror shot. We are not a nation: we are a hydration. Some have the largest pond in Catalonia in terms of area: the one in Ivars and Vila-sana. The others have the largest in terms of capacity: the one in Banyoles. And as the ornithologist said: in the ponds there are many little birds in the head. From this liquid and solid relationship is born one of the first and underwater interviews with a filmmaker who has given more to talk about the earth, the galaxies and the wineries. Published in Reverse in 2004. The person writing this has been a journalist for 30 years, and can say and does say that the magazine deserves to go down in the history of journalism as the vanguard of reality. Look.
Reverse Serra was born in 2004 and died in 2009 in the same place: Pla d'Urgell. The most infinite green tablecloth of life in Catalonia. Here the sun levels out to surrender to a homeland of people. The horizon is a frightened hinge to enter a new life. Here is a place to live and die. Here a bricklayer, Llorenç Bonet, and a social worker, Pep Guasch, have the idea in a fertile land that just by throwing a spring of DNA that bounces, and bounces, fruit or candied plutonium: to make a magazine. Add the designer physiognomy girls, Esther Gatnau, Marga Prades, and the thermal consultant, Bonjo. Serra sees (his) universe in these loser-winner types.
Reverse It is made of pieces, bells, a cake of recapte, a casserole of pieces. Everything is there. That is why it has covers with a man with a head of bacon about a tractor, or electronic music records sharpened by smell, or what fascinates Serra: a photo gallery of catechists from Urgella. The filmmaker has just made Crespiano (2003). A portrait of the supposed villagers of this town in Pla de l'Estany. Their daily life stitched and creaked by meshed BSO. Fiction, reality. Serra tells Bonjo many things. Because he is interested in this: "I have a predilection for interesting people." He means the people of Crespià, of Pla d'Urgell... The ones you see every day, but you don't see them, nor do you want to see them. The mythology of costumbrismo made star system existential. All of Catalonia is Serra's actor. And that is why we are not a nation: we are fiction. He only raises the invisible seed to the filmed-seen fruit. The future shines, like those of Reverse.
Serra has just released the documentary Afternoons of solitude. In short: following a bullfighter and his team during bullfights. Now they are stabbing him. There are people who believe that it is unethical. That filming this is an apology for animal, vegetable, and mineral suffering. We have reached that point: the absolute denial of reality. You cannot. You cannot watch it. They are the same people who have not recognised the right to exist of the people who live in Crespià and Pla d'Urgell for years. That is why, Serra, you must make your next film here: where death and life are the perfect crime.
