Arturo Valls has had us fooled for years. His seasons as a burdensome presenter in, above all, ‘Now I fall!’ they were just the perfect gear to create the fictional Arturo Valls, a character between pathetic and humiliating that he has perfected in ‘Those from the tunnel’, ‘Camera Café: the movie’ and, now, ‘Two years and a day’. All three, by the way, are perfect examples of the best comedy being produced in Spain today.
combo of aces
Raúl Navarro and Miguel Esteban are two kamikazes of humor. Between the two they have created some of the most distinctive and unique series on the state scene: ‘The end of comedy’, ‘The neighbor’, ‘The people’s queen’, ‘Chapter 0’ or ‘Nasdrovia’ have come out of their hands , showing that we are able to do something more than the prototypical and old sitcom.
In ‘Dos años y un día’, both get together with another regular who begins to stand out from their hand, Luismi Pérez, to tell a story so linked to the present that any day could be news: that of a comedian who makes a joke about the virgin during a popular proclamation and ends up in jail after being sentenced by a very devout judge. starting point is amazingbut the best happens from here.
In just two episodes, this twist on prison comedies that transgresses all clichés (yet firmly embraces them at the same time) shows a debate about whether stabbing for being offended is validjokes about suicide, a fabulous cameo from Los Javis, prison re-enactments of ‘Hamlet’ and an absolutely full Arturo Valls in his role as presenter and humorist whose grace has run out.
jailhouse rock
If the starting point of ‘Two years and a day’ and its staging already exceed all expectations, its cast ensures that there is not a single moment that is not hilarious. Valls, playing the best version of himself, is accompanied by Javier Botet, Adriana Torrebejano and Amaia Salamanca, all three with perfect comic timing. Santi Ugalde also makes an appearance, the gold secondary of the Iberian comedy that many of you will remember for ‘What a sad life’, although in these first two chapters he is not sufficiently exploited.
From the first episode, the series achieves what many others take several seasons to achieve: find your own place, create iconic items, effective running gags and characters you want to keep getting to know throughout the episodes. Raúl Navarro and Miguel Esteban have taken everything they learned in the rest of their works and have poured it into ‘Dos años y un día’, creating an infallible comedy.
The prison, supposedly softened in its appearance but dangerous from its base (that folkloric book to protect yourself from stab wounds) is a perfect place from which to develop a more or less choral series in which the punchline is not sought or the joke itself, but to create a comic tension resolved by flashes of laughter. No character is artificially funny – there’s nothing in this quirky series that doesn’t seem organic, achieving a very difficult balance to achieve.
locking up
‘Two years and a day’ is a fantastic series that marks another notch in the pristine resume by Miguel Esteban and Raúl Navarro, and which is in danger of being buried in the Atresplayer catalogue. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking it.because this portrait of today’s society, the limits of humor, the clichés of prison cinema and a character torn between apathy and a very black future is one of the most brilliant productions to come out of our country in recent years.
It is possible that the sweetening of life in prison or the accumulation of prototypes bother some in search of a more original project, but ‘Two years and a day’ is not intended to be a one-of-a-kind project, but a solid, powerful and imperishable proposal. Fabulous.