The film Hasta el cielo (2020) follows the rise and fall of a young criminal caught up in a love triangle between his wife, the daughter of a crime boss, and another woman with whom he falls in love. Hasta el cielo: The Series (premiering Friday, March 17 on Netflix) begins by gutting the film for those who haven’t seen it: things didn’t end well for two of the components of this trio. The survivor is the protagonist of the series that continues this story, rediscovering its characters, expanding its universe and continuing with its particular portrait of the criminal world of Madrid in the 21st century.
Although the film and series are closely linked, those responsible worked on the second with the intention that even those who have not seen the first could become addicted. “We had a very broad universe with many characters and many stories, and in the film we had to stick to a triangle between three characters, a very powerful love story in that setting, but there was no room to enjoy and develop all of that Elements, characters that were there,” explains Jorge Guerricaechevarría, screenwriter and co-creator of Hasta el cielo. Sitting next to him in a Madrid hotel on March 6, director Daniel Calparsoro continues: “In the film we had to leave out one character, the infiltrator, that we wanted to include, but there was no space. We wanted to capture who these people are, that they aren’t mindless, they hit four sticks and that’s it, there’s a tradition, they come from the Butroneros descended from the old mercheros. It’s people who live to steal and make a living from stealing, structured organisations, with lawyers studying law… It’s not as present in the film because it has such a youthful aspect, but the series gave the opportunity to show that”.
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For its creators, Hasta el cielo shows the evolution of the underworld that Spanish cinema already embodied in El Lute: Camina o reventa (1987) or the quinqui cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. “This is what happened to these people who went from the barracks to the shanty towns built at the end of the Franco regime with their own codes that were kept and changed at the same time. They function differently, they have a different way of moving, they are not addicted to drugs, they are not addicted to heroin… And it mixes with the world of social networks, where you see the sneakers or the watch that Ronaldo wears and when If they are in a shop window, I ram myself into him and take them and 20 others,” says Guerricaechevarría.
Álvaro Rico and Asia Ortega, in the first chapter of “Hasta el cielo: La serie”. JAIME OLMEDO/NETFLIX
Opposite the film’s male protagonist (Miguel Herrán), the series’ overcrowded cast is led by a woman, Sole, played by Asia Ortega. Her ambition is to achieve emancipation, dominate her own criminal gang outside of her father’s (Luis Tosar) safe haven, and prove that she can stand on her own two feet. But neither the police, nor his own trusted attorney, nor his father, nor a police infiltrator (with whom he forms a relationship to make matters worse) will make it easy for him. “It’s the story of maturation, of a person breaking the shell and growing. In his maturation, instead of venturing into revenge or anger, he comes to a point of understanding. He has a lot of emotional intelligence,” Calparsoro says of his protagonist.
The director and screenwriter’s tremendous documentary work in preparation for the film, with contacts in both the criminal world and the police in Madrid and Ibiza, helped them to give their story a very real background. Some characters, like the protagonist of the series or the infiltrator played by Álvaro Rico, are inspired by real people. “There are women who could be compared to our protagonist, not exactly in the world of the aluniceros, but in the underworld, with a lot of power,” says Guerricaechevarría. All heists that appear in Up to the Sky are based on real hits. Even some that went wrong in reality come into play here.
Screenwriter Jorge Guerricaechevarría and director Daniel Calparsoro, creator of “Hasta el cielo. The Series’.Claudio Álvarez
For the series, the creators set out to update their information and document themselves with the news that occurred during robberies. “Now it’s more sophisticated robberies with aspects to do with alarms, controlling the guard to get the key…” describes the screenwriter. His research also served to bring realism to the characters and stories. “Talking to people who are in similar situations gives a lot of peace of mind when writing the script because you’re leaning on something, you’re not going to a stereotype or copying American movies that you’ve already seen,” he continues.
Aside from filming the action scenes, both creators acknowledge that the difficulty of the series lies in the script and the multiple storylines it contains. “We wanted it to be similar to the film in that there was a balance between the storyline and the characters so that the first didn’t eat up the second,” says the author. So the story not only shows spectacular brawls of all kinds, it also has room for dialogues between father and daughter or to delve into the supporting characters.
Luis Tosar and Asia Ortega, in the second episode of “Hasta el cielo: La serie”. JAIME OLMEDO/NETFLIX
Movie and TV
Both Jorge Guerricaechevarría and Daniel Calparsoro are common names in Spanish cinema who have had a significant presence on television of late. In the past three years, Guerricaechevarría has written and produced 30 Coins alongside Hasta el cielo: La serie and signed the screenplay for Desaparecidos. Calparsoro has directed Operation Black Tide and has previously participated in Todo por el juego and Apaches, among others. “Today it often happens that you present a story and you say, ‘Couldn’t this be a series?'” admits Guerricaechevarría.
“Sometimes you wonder if it’s worth doing something for cinema when the most common viewing platform is a TV, an iPad or even a phone,” Calparsoro reflects on the present and future of cinema in cinemas. “Now it’s mainly event films that work, and in Spanish cinema we don’t have the capacity to make a lot of event films,” Guerricaechevarría continues. “The middle class of the cinema goes to the platforms. But thanks to support for women directors, some very small films have come about, many of them directed by women, that make wonderful films that would not have come out five or ten years ago because very few would have bet on them. And that’s good too, and it’s cinema. I think cinema will continue to function, it will continue to reformat. We’ve been through so many of these crises…” adds the screenwriter.
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