Woody, Louis Garrel and Shawn in La Concha.
A Woody Allen he likes fiction more than reality. Reality has always seemed terrible to him. And perhaps that is why, at 85 years old and despite the dark cloud that hangs over him, he continues to shoot one film a year. Fantasy is a much better place to hide and in which to capture his existential questions and answers, exaggerate his personal qualities as portrayed by him or other actors and in which dump all the nostalgia for him if not for a better time, at least for a better cinema.
All of that is summed up in his last (pen) question, Rifkin's Festival. One of those few cases in which he has left his city, New York. Twelve years after Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody has returned to Spain, to shoot with a practically Spanish team (all the crew chiefs repeat except the director of photography, because he now works with the legendary Vittorio Storaro) and he went to San Sebastian last summer, for seven weeks (as long as his filming always lasts), to put into images a script that is a walk through the city and a walk through the cinema of the great European masters: Bergman, Fellini, Buñuel, Truffaut…
Vittorio Storaro and Woody bringing light to the Basque Country.
The San Sebastian Festival is the frame of the film. Although its protagonist Mort Rifkin as Wallace Shawn He complains at the beginning that the festivals of today are not what they used to be, and in fact during his days in the city, accompanying his wife, he only goes in to see an old movie –At the end of the escapade– and He spends his time wandering around the capital of Gipuzkoa, corners and places that Woody Allen did not define in his script with his first and last name, but he did describe spaces that the production team and locations had to track down.
“We presented him with four options from each place and when he came to San Sebastián we gave him a tour to decide all of them and keep one and a plan B”, he says. Bernat Elias, production manager that he already worked with the director of Manhattan in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. And like then, says Elias, Woody Allen does not intend to film “a postcard city”. “They are places that he likes, that fit into history, they are not postcards, they are beautiful spaces. He does not intend to rediscover the city and it is still his perception of a place that he sees as someone from outside", he says. ****" He does not care if they are touristy or highly visited as long as they add to the story ". * ***
Wallace and Louis at the San Telmo Museum.
Mort turning over in his head the marital crisis that overwhelms him and for which he has traveled there trying to hold on to an already unreal bond (Gina Gerson plays his wife and is more interested in a young director, played by Louis Garrel). He also thinks about the big questions, the really important: "Is this all there is or is there something else?" An existential emptiness oppresses his heart until he meets Dr. Rojas (Elena Anaya), his tourist and spiritual guide.
Speaking of love, cinema, life and autumn in New York and Paris in the rain, the two walk the streets of the city, the shell to the kursaal, go through Cafe Botanika. They make a trip to Tickets and its antiques market, have a picnic in Hernani.
Elena Anaya and Wallace Shawn.
She goes to the places most linked to the San Sebastian Festival together with his wife and also with Louis Garrel: the Kursaal, contest venue, the Victoria Eugenia Theater, the Maria Cristina Hotel, unofficial nerve center (where the interviews take place, the stars stay), the San Telmo Museum, where the opening party or the Altxerri, for the after drinks. And those posh lunches and dinners, in Ulía Viewpoint, in this case, with the best views.
The unmistakable terrace of the María Cristina.
And, finally, Mort has time alone to continue walking, aimlessly. he goes through Donosti Bookstore, a must-see in the city. And in his dreams in black and white, trying to find vital answers in the great masterpieces of cinema, he transforms places in San Sebastian into movie sets: like the halls of the Provincial posing as the mansion of The Exterminating Angel; Miramar Palace like Citizen Kane; either Zumaia like the beach in The Last Seal with Christopher Waltz like death that comes to give you good advice: Of course life is empty but you have to fill it. Thanks, Woody, we will continue filling it with cinema. Good cinema.
Woody, Gina Gershon and Wallace Shawn at the Maria Cristina.