The European Premiere of Os reviento: A Spanish Film of Punches, Smiles, and Excessive Characters

The Sitges festival puts on its boxing gloves for the European premiere of Os reviento, by Kike Narcea, a Spanish film of punches, smiles and excessive characters that is participating these days in the Midnight Xtreme section. It arrives after triumphing in the United States, where it won the public award at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, one of the most popular genre film competitions. It has also won the award for best feature film at the Buried Alive Film Festival in Atlanta, so the expectation among fans and not so fans of the bad guy genre is growing and aims to become a new cinematic guilty pleasure.

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An example of a guilty pleasure – unspeakable, although with a loving meaning – this summer has been for many viewers The Meg 2: The Pit, with Jason Statham. Os reiento stars precisely the Spanish contender for the local Statham title: Mario Mayo, who plays Tarado in the film. “A programmer at Austin’s Fantastic Fest reviewed it like this: ‘The Spanish Jason Statham’, and the truth is that we were both very excited because we love it. It is true that they are easily comparable. They are both bald, very strong,” acknowledges Kike Narcea, author of the award-winning short film Tía, no te saltes el axis and director of Os reiento. “But the truth is that each one has their own charisma. “I think, in fact, that Mario Mayo is more handsome than Jason Statham,” he concludes.

Mario Mayo, right, in Austin.

Is there such a thing as punching? “There is a phrase in the film, said by my character’s father, that defines this question: ‘You were born to give shit and you know it.’ And Tarado is not a student of minds nor a strategist who plans what he is going to do at every moment. He is a guy who has always been in trouble and who simply wants to escape from them, but when he sees the little he has in danger, his only way out is to fight,” says Mario Mayo. For Kike Narcea, “the good Spanish action directors, talented artisans to be claimed such as Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi, José Antonio de La Loma or the Romero Marchent brothers, in the end ended up making co-productions and films that, although Spanish, were shot in English with American actors, or stars like Antonio Mayans, who we have in Os reiento playing Mario Mayo’s father. I would like, frankly, for some of these works that we make to succeed enough to consolidate a market niche, and talk about Spanish action cinema.” Although he does cite some examples such as a remake in the nineties.

The surprising thing about Os reiento is how its creators, with a budget that they consider sufficient although not generous, have created a film with a more than respectable technical and artistic result. “I have done theater, I have participated in several of the first internet series that existed and in several short films that a priori do not have the financing of a feature film. The important thing is to give the most of yourself wherever you are,” explains Mayo. And Narcea points out: “If the question is whether to make the film or not, the answer is always yes. You don’t have to act crazy, or try to shoot stories that require a certain budget. But yes, when you don’t have what you want, you have to do something else, but do.”

At Os reiento they have opted for the care of the product. “I believe that what we call magic in cinema is made up of, precisely, details,” says the director. “Only with image and sound you must fill everything with details that make you believe that the Titanic is really sinking or that that guy with the beret is not Alfredo Landa in an adaptation of Delibes but a real peasant.” And that, they say, also applies to the interpretation of the fight sequences: “Fatigue can take a toll on you, so you have to control a lot so that it seems believable and doesn’t look tacky. And, of course, having an actor opposite who also knows what he’s doing,” says the protagonist, who has had colleagues like Fernando Gil, giving life to one of his enemies in a character that is the opposite of his latest success, the series Alpha males.

Mario Mayo, in the film.

Furthermore, humor structures the entire film in a kind of self-parody with substance where the dog seems to be the most intelligent character. “In the movie they are all crazy. In fact, Tarado is possibly the most normal, the only one who just wants to live with dignity and not go back to prison,” explains Narcea. “Spain is a place where any tragedy, epic or epic is always full of humor, of someone who doesn’t realize it, of many who speak at the same time, of everyone giving their opinion. Sometimes Os reiento seems like a Berlanga film with quinquis. It has not been premeditated, but it is true that I consider Berlanga a teacher of teachers and I love quinqui cinema.”

You never know where a Jason Statham comes from or if he is born or made, but Mario Mayo, along with the humor and the fights, leads the film with charisma: “I remember when I saw Demons, by Lamberto Bava, as a child and they had to fight a horde of demons in a movie theater. And Tarado, in a way, sees himself in that situation, without any established plan, fighting with his fists and with what he has at hand. It is still too early to know if Os reiento will have to pull out all the stops to navigate the sea of ​​premieres.

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2023-10-12 12:57:00
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