“Grandma” finally arrives, a demon king in whom Satan is aging | culture and entertainment | Valencian Community Edition

Valencian director Paco Plaza, one of the primary names in Spanish horror cinema, will premiere on Friday, after several delays due to the pandemic, his latest feature film “La granny”, directed by Carlos Vermott’s screenplay on the theme that he considers “dangerous”: old age.

“Novelty is a reflection of the passage of time and how terrifying it is for us, and how in this society we have taken the focus away from the elderly, focusing on styles of youth and beauty as values ​​in their own right when in reality they are things that, by their nature, expire,” Plaza issues a point Blank, in an interview with Evie.

The film stars Vera Valdez, the 84-year-old Brazilian supermodel, muse of photographers Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton and favorite of Coco Chanel, and Madrid actress and model Almudena Amor, grandmother and granddaughter, who accompanies Karina Kolokolchikova, a staple. “Friend”.

“The first time I spoke to the producer, Enrique Lopez Lavigne, I told him I wanted to make a movie about demonic possession in which the devil was aging, because I think we have demonized over time and that seemed necessary to think about it,” says director Veronica ( 2017).

Today, Plaza says, “it seems inherently bad to have wrinkles, or gray hair.”

The film begins when Susanna has to leave her life as a model in Paris to return to Madrid and take care of her grandmother Pilar who has just had a stroke; Years ago, when the girl’s parents died, the grandmother raised her to be her daughter.

Susanna needs to find someone to take care of Pilar, because an important work contract awaits her, but despite her best efforts, she cannot find a better solution than to take care of herself.

The pandemic, behind the delay in this movie’s premiere, crosses the movie too. “It is true – says Plaza – that what Grandma means today has nothing to do with what she meant when we started writing the script.”

“We all now have horrific images, fairly close, of the real carnage in which nursing homes, which never cease to be anything more than leftover meat, waiting to be treated to be cremated when they die,” comments with the rudeness of the Valencia manager.

For this reason, he adds, the film is also “a cry of wrath and revenge on the elderly.”

Said to be a ‘matryoshka’, Plaza asserts that the metaphor fits him ‘very well’ because, in his opinion, ‘we carry within us all of our predecessors’.

“We are heirs of who we are and we cannot escape from it; the film also talks about inheritance and how we continue to exist within those who come after us,” concludes Plaza.

It is the first film to play the protagonist of the newcomer Amor, who feels “as if she has been hit by a wand” for her debut in a genre film, and also because of the luck she had to be a part of the film in which Spain will try to get to the Oscar, ” Good manager.”

About “La granny,” Omar asserts that since he read the script he has sympathized “a lot” with the character, as well as with the movie’s subject matter.

“Vera was a model and had the body that I have now, and I’ll eventually end up having her. I love those scenes—they refer to a long sequence in which the granddaughter bathes Grandma, where the plaza doesn’t hide or wrinkle from the old woman—they filled me with tenderness, they seemed to be from What’s so important is that they tell what the movie is saying.”

“The discomfort of an elderly person’s nudity should give us a lot to think about,” says Plaza, revealing that the shower scene goes on for longer than necessary on purpose to provoke thought: “Why are we so used to seeing our bodies at such a young and glamorous age, when they are such a small slice of society? .

For Plaza, working with Vermot was a “privilege.” “It is unusual for one director to write to another. But we are friends, we share a lot of life, a lot of Sitges, and when I commented he offered to help me.”

“He worked as a tailor, made a custom jumpsuit for me. I think it really imbued the movie with its substance and greatly influenced the way I direct and I feel like Carlos’ weight in this movie is so great,” and not just because the scent that permeates (and advertises the model) is called “The Girl” magical”.

Alicia J