‘Tequila: sex, drugs and rock & roll’: Retrospective of a group that made history

There is no doubt that if there was a group that made history by triumphing with the arrival of democracy and the beginning of the Transition, it was Tequila. Before the Movida and long before names like Alaska and Dinarama or Mecano emerged, it was this band that brought prestige to a Spain that came from a gray period and that in the six years lived marked an entire generation. Currently becoming a symbol of Transition in cultural terms and whose themes have managed to transcend pop culture.

Therefore It is not strange that the Cantabrian director Álvaro Longoria wanted to make a retrospective of the group’s history with “Tequila: sex, drugs and rock & roll”. Presented at the 70th San Sebastián Festival and at the 67th Seminci in Valladolid, the documentary film traces the band’s glorious years, but also its darkest moments, the reasons for its separation and the confessions of those members who are still alive and as Tequila reunited for several farewell concerts, the latest in 2021.

Although the tape says the documentary is narrated by actress Cecilia Roth, Ariel Rot’s sister, she actually acts as another commentator on a production that follows the conventional pattern of the statement documentary. Even if in this story the interpreter does not become the godmother, she is a fundamental figure for the filmsince he has personally experienced a good part of what happened in Tequila and of those glorious years and the subsequent disagreements that led to its dissolution.

Looking back with maturity and accepting the passage of time

Longoria carries out a documentation work typical of a musical proposal. Although he did not have direct access to concerts as León de Aranoa had with ‘Sentiendo lo mucho’ (which explores the life and work of Joaquín Sabina); the director of ‘The Propaganda Game’ and ‘Sanctuary’ does it he gets the living band members to speak honestly on camera, admitting their past mistakes as well as their virtues, looking with hindsight given by years and experience. It’s that point that makes the tape such a remarkable awareness exercise.

And this is seen most clearly in the shadows that the group had, how arguments erupted and how drugs ended up consuming its five members and how two of them died as a result. The film lives up to the name and remembers these figures as the Spanish rock legends they are, it’s the moments of reserve between Ariel Rot, Alejo Stivel and Cecilia Roth that the film flows most naturally. It also allows us to see how both, friends since childhood, have been able to smooth things over as time went on and how that farewell concert tour in 2021 served more as a reunion than a final farewell.

For the more uninitiated, it serves as a an exercise in musical and historical dissemination, as songs like “Salta” or “Rock & roll in the Plaza del Pueblo” have become anthems of popular culture, quite a feat for a band that made history. For fans it will be a moment of reunion with artists who know how to look back, dosing nostalgia and accepting the passing of time and the mistakes of youth with honesty and maturity. A film that also serves as a portrait of the devastating effects of one of the worst epidemics experienced in the 80s, heroin. Longoria once again demonstrates his affinity for non-fiction with an accurate proposal that is realized in the intentions.

Note: 8

The best: The honesty that exists in the testimonies of Ariel Rot, Alejo Stivel and Felipe Lipe, the three survivors of the original formation.

Worse: It’s still a statement documentary, it won’t appeal to those looking for a more innovative experience.