Monzón: «The crime cinema of the 80s cannot be reproduced, it is a child of its time»
Source: www.diariodemallorca.es
The Mallorcan director has shot during the months of the pandemic ‘The laws of the border’, the film adaptation of the novel by Javier Cercas.
Daniel Monzón does not remember who gave him Javier Cercas’s novel The Laws of the Border, but he does have a very clear image of how he became obsessed with taking it to the movies from the moment he began to read it. It hit him in some way, it took him back to his childhood when he was ten years old when he lived in Valencia in an area where, if he looked out of the balcony, he saw an open field where the quinquis of his neighborhood were. He came across them many times, he felt fear, but at the same time a strange fascination: that of living outside of social conventions.
That was the germ of his adaptation of The Laws of the Border, which he has written with his regular collaborator, Jorge Guerricaechevarría, is produced by Atresmedia Cine, Ikiru Films and La Terraza Films, it will be distributed by Warner Bros Spain and was shot in times pandemic, from August to November.
We visit the Mallorcan director in his operations center, where he is editing the film with Mapa Pastor. From the staircase a song is heard that seems to take us into another universe. They are the Derby Motoreta’s Burrito Kachimba, the band that has coined the term quinquidelia to define their music and is in charge of the film’s soundtrack. “I wanted it to have a musical aroma, for there to be an emblematic song like the Me quedo tú de Los Chunguitos en Deprisa, quickly”, says Daniel Monzón.
That was the germ of his adaptation of The Laws of the Border, which he has written with his regular collaborator, Jorge Guerricaechevarría, is produced by Atresmedia Cine, Ikiru Films and La Terraza Films, it will be distributed by Warner Bros Spain and was shot in times pandemic, from August to November.
We visit the Mallorcan director in his operations center, where he is editing the film with Mapa Pastor. From the staircase a song is heard that seems to take us into another universe. They are the Derby Motoreta’s Burrito Kachimba, the band that has coined the term quinquidelia to define their music and is in charge of the film’s soundtrack. “I wanted it to have a musical aroma, for there to be an emblematic theme such as Me stay with you by Los Chunguitos in Deprisa, quickly”, says Daniel Monzón.ses of the pandemic ‘The laws of the border’, the film adaptation of the novel scored by Javier Cercas.
The laws of the border tells the story of Nacho, La Tere, and El Zarco in the summer of 1978. The first is a 17-year-old introverted student who lives in Girona and meets two young criminals from the city’s Chinatown in a recreational area. that will integrate it into their spiral of thefts, robberies and robberies. «It is a romantic film in all aspects, since it remembers those times from that perspective, that of those legendary outlaws who were the quinquis, but told from the present, from the memory of the protagonist, who at that time was a teenager who what I wanted was to scream, run, fuck, dance and skip the codes, ”continues Monzón.
Historical reconstruction
As we speak, in the editing room we see one of the scenes that Pastor is working on, a spectacular car chase through narrow streets reminiscent of those that José Antonio de la Loma filmed at the time, but in this case in stylized version. Monzón recognizes that it is a historical reconstruction. The quinqui cinema, as it was made in the 80s, is impossible to reproduce because it is the son of its time. But he did try to keep the cast full of freshness and new faces. Nacho el Gafitas is played by Marcos Ruiz (he was the child of Felices 140), Tere is Begoña Vargas, who became a real revelation in Malasaña 32, and Zarco, Chechu Salgado. The rest of the band took it out by doing many castings in suburbs: the Piernas, the Chino, the Dracula, the Guille, the Gordo and the Quina.
“The laws of the border is a romantic film that recalls the times of those legendary outlaws who were the quinquis,” says Monzón.
