Pep Prieto, Isaki Lacuesta, Imma Merino and Àngel Quintana closed yesterday evening in the Grand Auditorium of the Carles Rahola Public Library in Girona, the 10th Rahola Week, with “A film debate”, a relaxed conversation in the around the past, present, and future of critics. Pep Prieto opened the evening, noting that the job “has an unpleasant point”. “How many times have you heard ‘if the critic likes it, I won’t like it’. It is a profession that is evolving and you will never know enough regarding it “said the collaborator of Diari de Girona.
Isaki Lacuesta, who presented his latest film, Un año, una noche, at the Berlinale just a week ago, recalled his beginnings as a film critic in the same newspaper. “When it came to reviewing a very bad movie, I used to talk regarding other things,” he said. The filmmaker from Girona also recalled how he often learned regarding cinema by doing a critique. “Sometimes I watched a movie and knew almost nothing regarding it. But I spent the weekend reading reviews of Angel or Imma, among others. I even went to the Library to learn things, and in the end, I explained to my reviewers a lot of things that I had just learned. ”
In turn, Àngel Quintana, Professor of Film History and Theory at the University of Girona, confessed that, in his opinion, exercising this profession is still a way of “making a hobby profitable”. Quintana recalled that when he started, “criticism was like a small space of freedom” in the face of the threat posed by . “There is a certain journalism that advertises films, but the criticism is different: it is the freedom to be able to tell films,” he added. “Over time, I have become more interested in seeing criticism as a space for opinion, for analysis. For me there are no masterpieces. I like to think regarding what I see and rather than critique, make theories, ”he said.
For her part, Imma Merino, a journalist and film critic at El Punt-Avui, referred to the current inconsistency for many critics, the fact that she always recommends that people go to the cinemas to see the movies on the big screen, when many of them end up doing it through a small screen, following receiving a link, for the “immediacy”. “Usually we want the reviews to be published before the premiere,” said Merino, who recalled that in his first steps in this profession, the reviews were published a few days following they were released.
Criticism in the digital age
On the great changes that the profession has undergone, Pep Prieto defended the need to take the story into account. “There is a difference between criticism and dissemination. Now we have a new generation that is trying to tell the story of cinema, ”said Prieto, who cited the Marvel Factory phenomenon, which brings together a large number of viewers who have never read it with films such as Spiderman. the comics.
Isaki Lacuesta was critical of his lack of ambition, given the advancement of new technologies. “You can bet a lot more on the interactive world, but it’s not over yet. All the possibilities we have right now are not being taken advantage of enough. ” Imma Merino pointed out that, compared to her early years in the profession, there are now many more women. Merino also stated regarding the present of the profession, that “right now, there is more criticism than ever, the other thing is who reads it.” “Some of these criticisms may only be read by people who also criticize,” he added.