That summer they lived.
For more than 20 years, a man was writing obituaries to his deceased wife. Each obituary, a year lived by him, a romantic diary. That romantic news was the starting point for the construction of an epic love story, The summer we live. The obituaries that the main character, Gonzalo (Javier Rey), sent to a local Galician newspaper reach the hands of Elizabeth (Guiomar Puerta), a young journalist who decides to investigate and find out who this man was writing to.
The summer we live in is, in fact, two stories, separated by 40 years: that summer of the title, in 1958, the one that marked the lives of Gonzalo and Lucia (Blanca Suarez); and that of 1998, which will mark the lives of Isabel and Carlos (Carlos Cuevas), Gonzalo's son Two journeys of self-discovery through love.
The bridges of Jerez.
"It's a classic love story," confirms Carlos Sedes, the director. “I liked it because it reminded me of one of those movies from my time, which moved me like The Bridges of Madison County or Noa's Diary”.
Also a love story washed down with the best wine from Jerez de la Frontera and illuminated with the warmth of the Cadiz sun in which time is the guiding thread, metaphor and protagonist. Time is probably the most repeated word by its protagonists. That time that you can drink in each sip of fine served directly from the enormous barrels of the González Byass warehouses in which they filmed. Y That time you can't waste for which you are responsible, in a very appropriate lesson for our current moment. Or that time that Gonzalo wants to capture so that it remains through his trade: architecture, with that new winery with which he wants to leave his mark. A time that ends up recapitulating in those obituaries, memories of the best summer they lived.
Blanca Suárez and the light of Cádiz.
To separate the two time lines of the film, Sedes and the artistic team decided to give them very opposite tones and aesthetics. The 90s, which start in the fictional Galician city of Cantaloa, are cold and draw straight lines. Those of the streets and buildings of industrial cities, “lived places”, as Sedes says. That's why, they chose Ferrol with its eighties past and its corners recovered through international muralists in Canido neighborhood.
The next noventera stop cannot be of straighter lines, of sharp angles: it is the Labor University of Cheste, a spectacular educational complex, built in 1969, a project of the Franco regime that today is underused.
For Sedes, on the other hand, the 50s, the love story in Jerez between Gonzalo and Lucía, it is warmth, they are golden colors, oxides, ochres, sunsets. Are round shapes, those of the valleys and vineyards, those of the barrels, those of the dunes and Atlantic waves... and those of the curved lines drawn by the leading architect.
Pablo Miller and Javier Rey.
Jerez de la Frontera was the center of operations of the filming of The summer we live. Its historic quarter and its palaces appear, but also the vineyards and the González Byass wineries adapted to that explosion of Sherry wine in the 50s. An environment that almost resembles that of the conquerors of the West, says the director who was also behind another wine production, Gran Reserva.
However, the story of forbidden love flees the vineyards and takes refuge in trafalgar lighthouse and explode in the marshes of Doñana Park and in Rota's beach (with the horse cart) and in that of Zahora, always at sunset. The epic of romance whose light darkens as the drama progresses.
Jerez vineyards.
And in the passage from one world to another, from the cold 90s to the warm 50s, where the straight lines of the horizon curve, it is the house in which Gonzalo lived his last years of life, almost alone, secluded, thinking of that love: a place they found in the awesome hermitage of Santa Comba, near Ferrol, overlooking a beach, which is completely covered at high tide.
A good final retreat.