‘Places We Have Never Been’: Fragments of desire and loneliness

On January 31st of this year, Spanish cinema has mourned the unexpected death of Canarian director Roberto Pérez Toledo, who died at the age of 43 from a stroke. His death caused enormous confusion because, in addition, he had a feature film to distribute. Therefore of particular interest will be the presentation of “Places we have never been to” at the last 25th edition of the Malaga Festival. Screened in the Zonazine section, it won the award for best film. And, now that it reaches the commercial halls, there is no doubt, This is the best work of the director born in Lanzarote.

‘Places we have never gone’ is an episodic film, with a choral soul, in which there are different stories that are only thematically linked. It begins with the unexpected reunion of a couple who left several years ago, played by Belén Fabra and Francesc Corbera; continues with another meeting, that of an actor with a casting director with whom he had an affair; played by Pepe Ocio and Andrés Picazo; it continues with two colleagues who stayed in a hotel to be unfaithful to their respective spouses, with Verónika Moral and Emilio Buale; continues with a newlywed couple in their thirties who just moved into the apartment they bought, played by Miguel Diosdado and Laura Rozalén, and It ends with two people coinciding in a group that remains to hug, played by Sergio Torrico and Ana Risueño.

Five stories, with which Pérez Toledo makes several portraits of love, lack of love, desire, loneliness, frustration, blackmail, domination, as well as making a generational approach, since most of the protagonists are peers. The director touched on several topics in what was his most ambitious cinematic proposal since “Six Points About Emma”, his first film. With a long career as a short film director, Pérez Toledo is right to bet on a story of stories, in which many of them stand out for their honesty in dialogue and the chemistry their actors awaken.

Farewell to a director who left too soon

Precisely, the first is the one that attracts the most attention, that bitter reunion of an old couple, in which reproaches and resentments are sensed and resurface like ghosts. Here we see that the director had a good pool of actors, since Belén Fabra stands out above all as that woman who has been consumed by her own ambition. At times it evokes Richard Linklater’s ‘Before …’ trilogy. Although the first story serves as a way to start and end the tape; There are two other shorts that also manage to attract attention.

The first to be an honest display of cynicism, the one about the aspiring star who had an affair with the casting director of his latest test and showing the dark power plays that can exist in the audiovisual industry and how these should not be between a man and a woman (magnificent Pepe Ocio as a man of power). The second, that of strangers who remain in a meeting of hugs, because it transmits a fascinating warmth and intimacy (what chemistry exude Sergio Torrico and Ana Risueño!)being a ray of light amidst stories that are classified as having a somber tone.

So is “Places we’ve never been to”. an example that few resources can tell stories that the public can connect with and that there is no reason to give up on visual qualityalong the lines of Pedro Collantes’ marvelous “The art of return”, Javier Marco’s sober “Josefina” or Adrián Silvestre’s fascinating “Me and my emptiness”. A posthumous work with a soul that leaves that unpleasant feeling of witnessing the farewell of a director who has left too soon.

Note: 7

The best: The moments of complicity between Sergio Torrico and Ana Risueño. The power relationship seen in the story with Pepe Ocio and Andrés Picazo.

Worse: The story with Miguel Diosdado and Laura Rozalén is the one that falters and makes the final result not so round.