I can’t pretend I understood everything in this film — in the best Spanish tradition, “todos hablan a la vez”. And I mean, todos y todas. So not a fiction then. A group of friends (at least, some of them appear to be friends) come together in an apartment to have a dinner. Just a dinner. Well aware that they are filmed — the cameramen are walking among them — but acting as if they were not. So not a documentary either. What is it?
It is an experiment. The actors were given some minimal description of their characters. No script and full freedom to improvise. It could have gone worse or better, more or less funny, more or less believable. (The awkward silence at the beginning of the third part, La Fiesta, seems to be genuine.) What’s important, it can’t be repeated. Ever.
Watching La Última Cena, you become acutely aware that it couldn’t have been filmed now. In the end it is revealed that the film was shot in December 2019, just three months before the lockdown started. And, while I personally don’t miss all these hello-goodbye kisses, I do appreciate the movie’s (probably unintentional at the time of making) nostalgic vibe.
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