A documentary miniseries remembers Tino Casal more than 30 years after his death.EMI
“They hate me because I was ahead of them with the jacket they wanted to wear.” This sentence, attributed to the musician Tino Casal, defines his artistic personality. He was the man who did not accept possessions, but the one who adapted them to himself; He shaped the world according to his wishes. In Spain in the 1980s, he became David Bowie on a stretcher. The king of more is more, the most avant-garde and courageous creator of his time, could have been one of the melodic singers of his time. But without disparaging his admirers Nino Bravo or Bruno Lomas, he had much more to say. Atresplayer Premium and La Cometa TV bring together all kinds of personalities, from singers to athletes, from fashion professionals to painters, to reconstruct in a documentary miniseries the enigma of excess that was the interpreter of Eloise and Panic in Eden.
The director and screenwriter Alfonso Albacete, who was shocked during his student years by the images that appeared in the “Embrujada” music video, describes in three chapters the artist and also the context of the creative explosion in which he lived and died (it happened in a car). accident at the age of 41 in 1991). It is a context – that of Iván Zulueta's Arrebato and Fanny McNamara's musical absurdity and the Los Costus painting – that is familiar to him and that inspired his first two features, Más que amor, frenesí (1996) and Atómica (1997). . The series, now available in the platform's catalog, seeks to “recognize the importance of a pioneering figure in music, in aesthetics and in a concept of genre that does not impose labels on itself and that he understood then as he understands it now.” “, explains the filmmaker in a telematics conversation this Wednesday.
One of the reasons for its originality, suggests Antonio Asencio, who signed the script to Albacete, is that chronologically Tino Casal was left in no man's land. “He was about ten years older than the Madrid Movida people. He had had a career full of ups and downs, but was already solid. This phenomenon was a lifeline for someone who was already a great artist. “His talent has enriched Movida,” he comments. He was a pioneer in so many things that he even developed the marketing concept around a pop culture star, says the screenwriter. Not only did he produce a heavy metal album for the band Obús, but he also designed their entire aesthetic proposal, although it was very far from his own. Also mentioned is his rivalry with the other rising star of the moment, Pedro Almodóvar, which he refers to in the lyrics of Egg Shampoo.
Through the musician's two sisters, Conchita and Maritina, who took part in the documentary series, you will get some insights into José Celestino, the boy born in the fifties in an Asturian town called Tudela Veguín, which currently has barely 500 inhabitants. But the bulk of this examination focuses on Tino Casal, the star who never took off the artist's mask; the one who stopped being a cult figure to be an everyday figure on radio and television, recently freed from the Franco regime. “It reached both middle-aged women watching Spanish television at home and young people studying cinema,” Albacete recalls.
Present in these three chapters are journalists specializing in music and pop culture such as Valeria Vegas and Arturo Paniagua, musicians such as Víctor Manuel, Fortu, Javier Losada, Luis Cobús and Ramoncín, personal friends such as the designer Manolo Cáceres and Antonio Alvarado, as well as his biographer. Gerardo Quintana. . The cyclist Perico Delgado also brings in his personal experiences surrounding Tino Casal. Many of them sit on the throne where he posed for the cover of his album Lágrimas decrocodile. “It was a way to restore the spirit of openness that he had in his life,” say the two creators of the series. Julián Ruiz, a close friend and producer of Tino Casal, preferred not to participate in a project with which he did not agree.
Although this documentary is a tribute to Casal before the new generations and is less close to his character, it also shows a group of young artists who have drawn on his legacy: among them Alberto Jiménez, leader of the indie groups Miss Caffeina and Agoney.
This premiere of Atresplayer Premium joins the series and documentaries of artists such as Camilo Sesto and Miguel Bosé, “who contributed to the modernization of Spanish society,” comments Asencio. Albacete believes that these characters are “very cute characters for the hunger of the platforms.” It is people who fill these catalogs with colors, references and melodies,” he concludes. Tino Casal died while preparing “The Phantom of the Opera” for the theater
You can follow EL PAÍS Television on X or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Get the TV newsletter
All the latest news from broadcasters and platforms, with interviews, news and analyses, as well as recommendations and reviews from our journalists
LOG IN