Stories from the good valley: human dignity, humanity and solidarity (*****) |Film

In "The Story of Good Valley," one of the protagonists, who was also the film's second director, commented in his own way that the genre best suited to tell...

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Once in Tales from a Good Valley, one of his artists, he is also the second director of the film, the most suitable genre to talk about his area is the western, cowboy film.We are located in Vallbona, a district of Barcelona between the Besós River and the highway.It's not the West, as it is in the north of the city, but it has everything, in an unexpected way: the railway that competes with the skyline, the story of the first settlers who arrived after the war, the endless immigrant peoples of the world migration, and even the dark nature of criminals, criminals of the law.What follows is just a rise to the horizon.Cinema, without giving up joy or pain, does not allow itself to be close to the negative vision of desolation.It's a noble, human, minor movie.

In fact, it is about the border, the border as a mythical and almost sacred space, that space that promises adventure where things do not yet have a name and that so well embodies the idea of ​​limits for good and evil.In general, the limit as the very principle of identity (and now more than ever with that bitter taste and renewed by exclusionary nationalisms) has always existed to deny, to abolish the other's right to be.The idea is always to recognize what is appropriate from what is foreign, the native from the foreign, as well as the different, what can be noticed from what is only debatable.The coercive reason must always be fully aware of itself, of its limits, of the conditions of validity that make a sentence recognized as reliable.And yet, another reading is possible, another cinema is needed (and another western, of course), and this is what José Luis Guerín's new film proposes with enthusiasm, clarity and completeness.In his ideology, the limit, the border or the identity are not walls of demarcation, but rather doors or windows of entry into the world; It is not a way out to the unknown, but access to what is worth, to what is human, to what supports. All together: Dignity, Humanity, Solidarity. And so on.

The director of Under Construction, who now signs Historias del Buen Valle as "In Progress", tells the story of the neighborhood that wants to become both legendary and the perfect metaphor for our time.Vallbona is, as has been said, a suburban area isolated by rivers, railways and asphalt.There, the rural world, closer and closer to disappearing, joins hands with the urban world, greedier and greedier every day.There were houses of the first performers.The first post-war settlements, built by themselves at night, hidden from the city guard, stood alongside the dormitory city's new tenements, which were as welcoming to those transferred from other higher settlements as to new migrations off the map.There, Guerín admitted that up to 14 languages ​​were spoken.There, social and generational conflicts played out on the same dam as the imagination of other worlds, the longing for a new life and memories of the past.And that is where the Tale from the Good Valley becomes strong with its perspective that is not only human but also moral, urgent, full, poetic and political.It is filmmaking that looks at society, not necessarily society.This is conscious filmmaking, not educational.This is dignified, humane cinema in support.

The camera does not try to give voice to anyone but the protagonist who takes the floor.Godard, always himself, says that cinema is a sign and signs are among us.And a step further, but always mysteriously, he added: "Cinema is the only one that has given us a clue. Others have given us orders."As long as the statement is understandable, Guerin takes it literally and not even, as we said at the beginning, the arrogance of being a director is valid.Each of those who appear at the outset declares to the camera what they want the film to be and then devotes himself as fully, as deeply as he is free, to confirming (in some cases refuting) the expectations of what has been declared and desired.One of them, of course, wants it to be a western, and the harmonica is also heard at the funeral of one of the founders of the neighborhood as if it were John Film Ford.If ever a film dared to be beautiful, beautiful as hell, it's this moment.

Stories of the Good Valley roam the screen, searching every corner of the viewer's retina for images of the other world that its inhabitants call to mind from the outside, but so often from the inside.And then, on the banks of the Reek Canal (which also exists), children dream of the beaches of Puerto Rico, women remember the sounds of the waters of Africa, and families bring exotic fruits from faraway India to their gardens.Sometimes the image transforms, without moving from Valbona, and evokes the cinema of Satyajit Ray without abandoning the strange adventure, the calm of Renoir, or the sad seriousness of the great tragedies.This is a cinema of echoes, traces, puzzles and skins.It's actually beautiful cinema.

The result is a lively film, warm, solid and at least as entertaining as the best of the West.An ode to what is worth, what is human, what is for everyone.A true beauty.

Director: Jose Luis Guerin Music: Anahit Simonian Cinematography: Alicia Almayana Duration: 122 minutes Nationality: Spain