Having made a television series about El Bulli, which showed the history and ways of doing things in that mythical restaurant, and along the same lines, a documentary trilogy about Salvador Dalí, has led to director david pujol to lead to a fictional story in which these two passions converge. The result is ‘Waiting for Dali’, a friendly fable filmed in Cadaqués, a place not far from Cala Montjoi in Roses, where Ferran Adrià’s restaurant was once located. Two cook brothers arrive there, Fernando (Ivan Massagué) and Alberto (a Pol Lopez who has just triumphed with ‘Suro’), looking for a place to hide because, because of Alberto’s activism, they are fleeing from the Francoist police. the death of the dictator. There is in the story an evocation of the work of these cooks and also of their partner Juli Soler, here the exuberant Jules (José García). In addition, Ferran Adrià himself has been the consultant for all the creations shown in the film.
The need to transfer the history of the Adrià to the 70s has to do with Dalí, who died in 1989. Otherwise it was impossible to include him in the bet. Jules, the owner of El Surreal, is obsessed with the painter, a good gourmet -in fact, he wrote two books on cooking-, and determined to the absurd that the genie, quite elusive and unpredictable, will visit them one day. “Thinking of those winding roads that lead to Cadaqués -explains Pujol- I imagined Dalí’s Cadillac there and fantasized about how much he would have loved to go eat at El Bulli. After all, Ferran Adrià is an artist who even participated in the Documentary from Kassel & rdquor ;.
To create is not to copy
From there, what Pujol recounts has little to do with reality, although there are many things that come directly from Bulli’s biography, such as the revealing motto that Ferran heard Jacques Maximin, the chef at Negresco, say: “to create is not to copy& rdquor ; and that Fernando, his alter-ego, is also present. Or that Ratatouille-style creative moment in which Ferran discovered the famous foams of him drinking orange juice and that Fernando in the film invents from the foam of the beer. “I wanted to tell a story, based on the need to tell tales and to return to a style of films that the Italians cultivated very well in the 90s, those comedies by Roberto Benigni or Massimo Troisi, in the style of ‘The Postman and Pablo Neruda’, who seek to make the viewer smile& rdquor;.
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Of particular interest in the film are the secondary actors such as the French José García, son of Galicians -who was the protagonist of ‘Arcadia’ by Costa Gavras-, “an actor who has a great capacity for alternating auteur cinema with commercials& rdquor;; vicky pena who embodies a very credible Gala while performing in French and even in Russian and José Ángel Egido as Arturo Caminada, Dalí’s driver. “He was a man who was faithful to Dalí all his life with a servility, perhaps from other times, but there was also an exciting loyalty in him& rdquor;.
From its title, the film raises the question of whether or not Dalí finally attends the culinary event. Next May 5, the date of the premiere, will be revealed