06 · 06 · 20

Joaquín Rodríguez, In Memory of His Friendship

Roberto Fiesco

Este personal y emotivo texto en el que Roberto Fiesco le rinde tributo a su amigo Joaquín Rodríguez fue publicado originalmente en el catálogo de la décima edición del festival y en el libro Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia (FICM). Una década haciendo historia. Joaquín Rodríguez fue miembro fundador del Comité de Organización y programador del FICM. En conmemoración de su aniversario luctuoso, lo seguimos recordando con mucho cariño y permanece como parte fundamental de nuestra organización.

 

Hoy volví al departamento de Joaquín, es la segunda vez que lo hago desde que murió. Algunos pocos objetos quedan de cuando él vivía ahí, apenas la mesa, un sillón, la escultura y el cuadro de su tío Mathías Goeritz, y poco más. La mayoría de sus cosas, como los carteles y libros, y los miles de DVDs, ya han sido resguardados buenamente por la Filmoteca de la UNAM. Su mamá, ejemplo de entereza y amor donde los haya, hizo un gran hallazgo en estos días, quizás el más valioso de cuanto objeto guardó durante su vida. Se trata de una modesta libreta Scribe donde, entre 1980 y 1982, el púber Joaquín había pegado, después de recortar cuidadosamente, los anuncios de las películas que aparecían en el periódico, indicando la fecha en que las había visto en los cines Durango, Alameda y Dorado 70, de su natal Durango, a donde parece que iba casi diario, a veces escapándose de la vigilancia familiar para ver algunas más de una vez, lo cual no dejaba de preocupar a sus padres.

Los recortes incluían una calificación que iba de M (Mala) a E (Excelente), misma que sólo lograban películas como Trapecio, de Carol Reed, o La novicia rebelde, en su enésimo reestreno; recurrentes MB para títulos del calibre de Fiebre del sábado por la noche, El imperio contraataca, y –por supuesto– varias R (Regular) para algunas otras adolescentadas de la época. Al final del cuaderno había también una lista de películas ordenadas ¡por estudios!

Es decir, estaban las producidas por MGM, Fox, Paramount, Universal, que seguro estaban suscritas como objetivos cinefílicos a ver sin falta y que a la postre serían algunas de las que él más amó como espectador.

Julián Hernández y yo lo conocimos en 2003 en un pasillo del Hotel Plaza del Sol. Era nuestro primer festival de Guadalajara y llevábamos a la competencia Mil nubes de paz cercan el cielo, amor, jamás, acabarás de ser amor, nuestro primer largo, que afortunadamente le había gustado. De inmediato hubo una corriente de simpatía, y me atrevería a decir que también de solidaridad. Tenía desde entonces el comentario ingenioso y puntual a la mano, pero también la risa fácil, la cara guapa y esa gran altura que siempre lo hacía sobresalir a la salida de alguna proyección u obra de teatro, o —mejor aún— en medio de alguna fiesta o coctel, lugares todos donde pronto empezamos a encontrarnos con mucha frecuencia. No tardamos en volvernos amigos, de esos que son como tu familia, para siempre.

Él ya era en ese momento un periodista reconocido, había trabajado en la revista Primer plano, y después en Cinemanía, Cine Premiere, y El Financiero. También fue supervisor (es decir, ‘censor’) en la Dirección de Cinematografía de RTC, después de haber egresado como comunicólogo de la Ibero de Torreón, pero sobre todo desde hacía años era guionista y conductor de 24 x segundo, aquellas cápsulas que habían sido la guía cinematográfica durante mucho tiempo de unos cuantos millones de espectadores en Canal 5. Ahí conoció a Oscar Uriel y Daniela Michel, que además de ser sus compañeros de mil batallas, festivales y junkets con toda clase de estrellas cinematográficas y efímeras starlets, eran también como hermanos.

When I met him, it seemed as though he had given up acting, but that was not exactly true. While in Guadalajara in 2003, Sin ton ni Sonia (dir. Hari Sama) premiered; Joaquín played one of the mute lieutenants of Tara Parra and the film launched the career of Juan Manuel Bernal, one of Joaquin’s favorites. His studies at the Forum directed by Ludwig Margules, an unforgettable teacher, and the works he did with José Caballero, David Olguín, Lorena Maza, and then with Antonio Serrano and Marco Antonio Silva, among others, were part of a past that above all left him with remarkable friends (including some very important ones like Plutarco Haza and Santiago Roldós). He felt infinite love for them and nostalgia for those times that he always considered as the best of his life–those of formation around his great passion, the theater. He never abandoned it as a loyal viewer of all types of staged productions, and he most recently returned to the stage with his dear Miguel Cooper in David Hevia’s Kant en Altamar, which appeared at the Casa de la Paz last year.

His angry outbursts were memorable, especially because it was hard to imagine that such a charming man could turn into a truly wild person, full of rage and anger. I experienced them a couple of times and his reaction seemed so disproportionate that I swore I thought he would never speak to me again. The first fight occurred during the baptism that is traditional for all filmmakers at the end of the shoot. I am so fanatic about this, sometimes I think I only make films so that I can engage in this great explosion of fun. That night I was having fun throwing paint and tying up the victims in the parking lot of the Centro Cultural Tlatelolco. When we tried to involve Joaquín in the game, he suddenly appeared bigger than life and began shouting at me, saying that the tradition seemed completely idiotic and that in no way was he going to be an accomplice to such stupidity. He then left furious, leaving me stunned holding a rope destined for him.

“Now we lost him!” I thought. I greatly regretted it because the end of that shoot corresponded to Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo, a film in which Julián had written a special part for him: Andrés, a grimacing man who frequented dark streets and solitary theaters in search of carnal pleasures. In this underworld of the darkest passions, Joaquín became another person, his sweet gaze was transformed into that of a man full of evil, capable of the worst abuses toward the character played by Javier Oliván, another life-long friend.

Not only was he with us the days he appeared in the scene; he was there throughout the entire filmmaking process, keeping a log of what happened day by day during the shoot, which was at times difficult, at others funny. Alex Cantú, the photographer, named him Mr. Log, and from then on he became friends with the entire “milnubera” gang. The truth is, the day was not complete without his glorious appearance and without his fraternal support in a very complex shoot that took us to Querétaro, Guerrero, Morelos and throughout Mexico City. Joaquín was fascinated by the film’s atmosphere, until it was time for the christening. Of course within a few days he called on the phone and acted as if nothing had happened and the matter was settled. Fortunately his level of repentance was similar to that of his wrath.

When the film was finished, we traveled together to an even more tense Berlinale, which always seemed lightened by his good humor, especially because we ended up winning the Teddy Award, a moment we celebrated together with unusual euphoria. I am proud that the only photos he put up on Facebook had to do with that film and our stay in Germany. That year the festival dedicated its annual retrospective to movies filmed in 70 mm, and it was in that way we were able to enjoy West Side Story as never before. Musicals were in a category all of their own for Joaquín. Life came to a standstill every time he would escape to New York or London to see one, or on the day of the Tony awards.

He felt the same way about musical motion pictures, with directors like Busby Berkeley, full of splendid choreographies, or Stanley Donen and Jacques Demy, alongside actors like Gene Kelly, Judy Garland and his favorite, Julie Andrews. These musicals formed the real Olympus of his enormously diverse film collection (where Mexican cinema was always present) that he shared throughout the country, as if he were Rosaura in Río Escondido (Hidden River), a devoted teacher communicating his enthusiasm and passion for cinema to hundreds of his students.

I can recall many memorable trips with him, but my fondest is the time we stayed together in Cannes. We shared a room and he put up with my terrible snoring, which automatically made him one of my best friends for life. We witnessed our first digital screenings there in 2006, unable to believe how perfect they were, and we finished off some nights in Zanzibar, where years before Rock Hudson also had a few drinks. We stayed in his hometown of Durango, invited by Juan Antonio de la Riva, during the height of the swine flu, and I had the privilege of walking with him through the streets where the abandoned movie theaters of his childhood still stood.

Few people were as busy as he was; it was not unusual for him to eat at his office in Holbein and call any time of day to talk about some film, ask for a phone number, comment on an adventure that occurred the night before or the weekend premiere. After arriving from Cannes, his suitcases had not even gone through customs before we were talking on the phone and I listened enthralled at his overview of what he experienced there, and of the plays he was able to see in London. There was no respite or schedule for our talks–he knew how to make every moment of life interesting and worthwhile, telling a funny anecdote which always made us explode into laughter, in spite of the seriousness of the matter at hand. I generally do not like it when people talk about films or books, but with him everything sounded so new and unique that you didn’t want to miss any of his comments.

The UNAM organized a tribute to him a few days ago, and I can’t imagine what the Gay Film Festival, which he hosted every year with the heroic David Ramón and Mauricio Peña, will be like without him. Now that Julián is editing Quebranto, I can see him making a brief appearance with the person who did us the honor, the same as in Yo soy la felicidad de este mundo, where he appears as the host of a television program. I am comforted knowing that other films that he participated in during the last few months, like La hija de Moctezuma, which Iván Lipkes directed for the greater glory of India María, or Cuatro lunas, by Sergio Tovar Velarde (his last appearance on screen), will soon be released.

It will be impossible to go through the portals of Morelia or enter the Hotel de la Soledad, where we always had adjoining rooms during the festival and had breakfast together or stayed out late at night with the gang, without thinking of him. Joaquín left friends around the world, hundreds.

Daniela recently told me jokingly, that he had one of the busiest date books in the city. I am proud to think that I’m one of his friends and I still cannot believe that he is no longer here. Perhaps for that reason I have not cried. Sometimes I imagine my telephone will ring and that I will hear his voice saying, “Robertito…!” Other times I imagine him in “musical heaven,” if one even exists, where I’m sure he is singing and dancing, like a Fred Astaire with wings, while we, in Chorus Line, one of the movies that won a VG in his notebook, sing along in tune:

Love is never gone.
As we travel on,
Love’s what we’ll remember.