250 million readers on the writing platform Wattpad were the first data to talk about success with Through my window. Then came the paper publication and the creation of a trilogy. The Hidalgo trilogy. and now it comes to Netflix (premiere February 4) the first film of the first novel. Promising to continue accumulating records and adding followers.
Directed by Marcel Fores (Animals, Eternal love), Through my window transfers the success of the Venezuelan Ariana Godoy a Barcelona. That's the big difference fans will find. “From the first moment, with the writers, we decided to place it in a city, in this case, our city, because we wanted, as happens in other similar stories, the place where it happens had a lot of presence, a lot of personality, it was one more character”, explains the producer of Nostromo, Núria Valls.
Barcelona was chosen as the setting for the almost forbidden romance and passion between its two protagonists: Raquel (newcomers Clara Galle) and Ares (Julio Peña Fernández, BIA). Two unlikely neighbors.
She lives in a more or less modest house that has become isolated in a neighborhood of mansions. She surrounds him with the estate of the largest mansion of all, that of the Hidalgo. Ares is the middle brother. Artemis is the oldest. Apollo, the youngest. Raquel is obsessed with Ares. And she thinks Ares doesn't realize that she's spying on him through his window and following him everywhere. But “It all started with the Wi-Fi password…”.
When their lives intersect over Wi-Fi, Barcelona begins to appear more. “We wanted him to always be at the feet of the characters, that it was part of each scene, beyond neighborhoods, streets, that the whole city could be seen”, says Valls. Barcelona flies over everything, every important moment of the two.
Barcelona always from above.
The aerial shots of the city at sunset or dusk they transition between drama and chance encounters. “The city is always present”, the producer insists. It is when we see the mighty tower of Alpha 3, the Hidalgo company. An invented tower that would be near the Hotel Arts.
At the top of that tower, on its helipad, takes place one of the hottest scenes and, surely, the most anticipated by fans of the novel: the great step of intimacy between the new couple. It's not a real rooftop. “We shot it in a set and we surround it with led screens on which we project real views of Barcelona”, reveals Valls. The magic of cinema.
What is real is the Tibidabo Amusement Park, where they place the fast food restaurant where the two end up working and also more than one passionate scene.
“We felt that a location like that gave the film more potential,” she says. achieved. The tradition of the place adds a strange and colorful nostalgia as a background for this love story compared to other literary successes first and later to cinematographic ones, as they were Three meters above the sky either Despues de.
Ares and Rachel.
AND WHERE DO THEY LIVE?
It would be the only neighborhood that, although without naming it, can be sensed in the film. Rachel and Ares live in Pedralbes. Although their houses, in reality, "They are a puzzle of locations." A facade of a house, the interior of another, Raquel's window is built... It will be difficult for fans to find a point of pilgrimage. Everything is in the upper neighborhoods of Barcelona, yes.
“We wanted to convey that sense of power of the Hidalgo, in his office and at home,” says Valls. That feeling that they have Barcelona at their feet.