“If I don’t understand my characters, I’m missing out,” said the director of El Buen Patrón, great winner of the 2022 Platinum Awards

Confirms 11 nominations for the 2022 Platinum Awards the great pattern –released on Thursday in Argentina – as the most important Spanish film last year.

Compete with your countrymen Parallel Mothersby Almodovar, and he was even better in public and in statuettes.

And as it happened, he won this Sunday, at the gala in Madrid for the best of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking cinema and audiovisual production, well worth the screams of the critics. the award for Best Ibero-American Fiction Filmn.

But behind it (not really) good pattern –owner of a scale factory, to whom the actor Javier Bardem became ill to obtain an important certificate of business-excellence, there is a great director. Who is also the author of the film and a certain documentary filmmaker.

Clarion talked to Fernando Leon de Aranoa at the Intercontinental Hotel in Madrid. And although he is the one who always commands and says he has never experienced harassment in the workplace, he admits someone who has gone through his life has inspired this villainous boss. And that’s yourself catharsis, The ending of the film is almost different.

There is a team

The Bardem-Aranoa tandem works. This is the third time they have worked together. So the director can teach how to make a global celebrity, who just lost his last Oscars nomination, not eat in a very good worldly story.

the good boss had its world premiere at the San Sebastian Festival, get 6 out of 20 nominationssomething recorded, in awards to Goya and it is the opposite of what it was 20 years ago Monday in the day, film in which León de Aranoa presents a story of the “unemployed” (as they call the unemployed in Spain) with Santa, played by Bardem, as the “unemployed worker”.

He then chose him to perform as Pablo Escobar loving paul. In this film, he returns her to command.

In tones of satire, and outside of what is strictly national, the Spanish director sought to make El Buen Patron represent a social drama at work that could take place anywhere in the world.

Julio Blanco is a charismatic businessman as per maldita, who pretends to be a family member to manipulate each employee in different ways.

There are toxic hierarchies, ambiguities, black humor, provocations on the issue of gender. Situations come and go. The only thing fixed is the viewers stay in a dependency relationship.

The same story can be told to a company for any product or service. Why did you choose a scale factory? “Bullets are everywhere. Even in supermarkets. There’s a world out there.

“A little justice …”

I thought, ‘Someone has to do this.’ I thought it was a good idea. Because he (by good boss) wants to have a factory where there is justice, fairness, concepts associated with the concept of balance. And in reality there is very little balance, very little Justice, ”he explains.

In the plot -and in the poster of the film- can be seen the first measurements made by that wealthy family company. It’s “magically” unbalanced, he says, to represent injustices at check-in (and after work).

“I tried to visit many factories. They did not allow me. In Spain there are two or three similar to the one in the film. We were in a pandemic and they still told us ‘no, no. Scales are a very sensitive issue. ‘ And I said ‘well, how hard’. We finally did the documentation in a different way and the art team recreated that place, ”the director explained.

The Básculas Blanco, then, was actually a completely empty shed, which they dressed up, filled with precise machinery and even put trucks with their logo.

Why is he always alone?

This is logical, but Why do you always choose Bardem? The actor took a chance. And that gives you confidence.

ang“The three characters we did with him have in common that they are very charismatic. With a very strong character. A lot of humor. And in this case too. Blanco is very seductive. He’s good, manipulative, there are. A lot of soft. power, which is more dangerous than others, because in the face of a strong, authoritarian power, one can say ‘beware.’ Not in one. Factory. As a rogue, Javier also brings that to the screen. He knows how to expose the dark corners of the character. “

The tone of the comedy was the source that allowed him a perfect balance between that awful boss- of relations with power and with the workers themselves, because of the disunity- and also the hostile- attractive and funny character traits.

“Am I laughing at this man?”

It’s part of the bet: “Hurt the viewer and at some point say ‘I’m really laughing at this man.’ Humor is inseparable. The more the film has to go into the drama, the darker it gets, the more intense the humor has to be.

“If I don’t understand that every single one of the characters, including the boss, is inside me, I think as a writer I’m missing out. From there it comes out that, no matter how small, no matter how creepy they are. Is , the characters are still human ”.

As the director questioned himself on the plot, he clarified that cinema, in his experience, “is always a very respectful space”. Without the hierarchies of a scale factory.

In a safe place spoilersfor those who haven’t seen it yet, León de Aranda talks Clarion from the end of the film. Is it always written? How many endings were recorded?

“In the process of writing the script, I had another outcome … which was very different but where I was always looking for life to bring some kind of lesson for the boss. The thing I feared most about the character was how difficult to empathize with someone like that.The rogue also engenders a certain interest, which comes out without being hurt.That always generates a certain empathy.It is true that throughout the film, because of the decisions he makes, it is especially difficult to feel empathy for him. For the red lines that he is crossing “.

Pay attention to the last scene. The boss advises him of a good boss. There may also be room for catharsis there.

CJL