THE KING (EL REY) (2018) by Alberto San Juan & Valentin Álvarez
“Por Antonio Llorens”
“The street is dangerous”
Through plays such as “Autorretrato de un joven capitalista español (Self-portrait of a young Spanish capitalist)” and the recent “Mundo obrero (Workers’ World)”, Alberto San Juan and his collaborators already show the limitations and manipulations to which our past and our present have been subjected. Following the path of “El rei borní / El rey tuerto”, by Marc Crehuet, “B”, by David Ilundain, or “M’esperarás?”, by Carles Alberola and the theater group Albena, among others, with “The King (El Rey)” a play is immortalized, now turned into a cinema and, therefore, safe conservation no matter how much the performers or the montage change their existence. In addition, “The King (El Rey)” assumes, like some of the aforementioned, the importance of accommodating both languages, theater and film, and thus the film becomes a great testimony and a brave denunciation of the attributions of a social class and politics characterized by speculation, corruption and economic power.
Franco, Puig Antich, Don Juan de Borbón, Adolfo Suárez, Felipe González, Iñaki Gabilondo, Antonio Tejero, etc., surround a monarch who has just abdicated and is beset by nightmares. The coherent discourse of San Juan, within the incoherence that gives the impression of dominating everything, makes it very clear, time and again, that it is the citizen, the street, who corresponds to end so much desman. While that long-awaited justice arrives or arrives, films like the one in question acquire an unquestionable value: the realization, without sets, with lights that play their role, with actors in true state of grace, do the role they play (Alberto San Juan highlights and his Caudillo, but we cannot forget Luis Bermejo and his Juan Carlos, or Willy Toledo…). “The King (El Rey)” is like a great movie, with a great sense of cinema at the service of theatrical values, a sensational chronicle of everything we want to know and nobody bothers to answer…
Traducido por: Eduardo Llorente.
Our rating: (3/5)
