Karra Elejalde (‘La vida padre’): “I don’t think there is more slave work than having a restaurant”

Deconstruction, spherification or use of liquid nitrogen are things that sound like Chinese, whose main dish is macaroni with tomato or grandma’s lentils. And it is that in the world of gastronomy there are two perfectly defined sides, traditional cuisine and modern cuisine, even if they must not be opposed. This is what ‘La vida padre’ talks about, collaboration and understanding between a father and a son who know gastronomy (and life) in very different ways. We got to talk with the main cast and its director at the film’s premiere on September 16.

Parent-child relationships are never easy and, according to Karra Elejalde, it affects everyone: “Even if subconsciously it always happens. Who hasn’t had parent-child problems? But you don’t analyze it, you don’t write it, you don’t look at it with a magnifying glass, it’s something that comes to you, it’s a learning that you already have consciously”. For Joaquín Mazón, the director of the film, it is the key to the project: “The idea of ​​the story came from there. From wanting to give a relationship with a father a second chance, which we sometimes don’t have and I wanted my characters to have that second chance. Through that amnesia that the character of Karra has, he reappears and we give Enric and Karra the opportunity to recover, to meet again “.

Mazón, who returned to feature films after “Elite Corps” (and its subsequent TV adaptation), described the project as time-consuming and expensive: “The pandemic caught us in the middle, like everyone else. We were a year late. Since we made ‘Elite Corps’ it was clear that we wanted to make another film that was born from something I wanted to tell, because until now everything had been commissioned Meanwhile, we made the “Elite Corps” series, but I was already guessing what I wanted to tell. It was a relatively long process, but the day I presented the folio to the producer, he said “Go ahead ‘”explained the director, “It was a bit of a multi-layered process, we thought about how to get Karra’s character back, we found an article of a retrograde memory that is Korsakoff’s syndrome that helped justify it, we went to Bilbao to absorb com ‘is that city in the 90s and today. A super nice process.

However, and although family love is explicitly reflected, there is also romantic love that is born in the most unexpected places. This is what happens to Nagore and Mikel, the characters of Megan Montaner and Enric Auquer. “My character is the hook, completely, the person who can see everything from the outside, the serious person who says ‘No, there’s a problem here, it’s been 30 years and you have to take care of it’, and that too does. enter into reason “, developed Montaner. For his part, the lead actor told us that he had thoroughly prepared his character: “I was in Bilbao for a while and then I was with chef Diego Guerrero, who opened the doors of the DSTAgE, which is a restaurant with two Michelin stars, showed me the service, how to prepare a pass, the his team, as they investigate. I understand the importance, the obsession, the need, the validation and where they find it, how they work. The need that every day is important and every day something is at stake “.

Traditional cuisine vs modern cuisine

The duality between past and present, modern and traditional cuisine, father and son, is the strong point of ‘La vida padre’. Karra Elejalde recalled his childhood to prepare for the role: “My father and my mother had some kind of bar, a restaurant, and my mother taught us how to cook. I paid a lot of attention to my motherI took advantage of it, in what I took advantage of when made me work like a fucking slave, cause when you are 12 or 13 in a restaurant you never stop being a slave childI didn’t have as much time to play as my friends. And even now, who does not know me, is 93 years old, is senile and has no memory anymore. I didn’t have to work so hard in the kitchen because my mother taught me how to cook in the traditional way “.

And it is that, despite the strenuous defense of gastronomy as a curative passion, there is also a short speech in order not to become obsessed with work, according to the director: “In fact, when Karra’s character disappears in the beginning it is also because of that pressure of having failed. Now he has been given a name, which is an anxiety, a depression, not in that moment”Masone commented. For her part, Elejalde analyzed her relationship with the kitchen: “I really like cooking, but I have a love-hate relationship with cooking, the hate fades and the love increases because I no longer remember how bad it was to be a kid in a restaurant (…). I also tell you that I don’t think there is more slave work than running a restaurant. You don’t have a boss there, you are the boss. You start at seven in the morning and end up taking out the trash and closing. Indeed, I have reached a point where I have not yet recovered from which the first thing is the profession, the second is the family and the third is health. And it’s a stupid mistake”.

‘La vida padre’ will debut in theaters September 16.