José Lifante & Julián Navarro, actors in the film

For the local actors in Barcelona, the project represented a promising opportunity to break into the international scene and to bring Catalan cinema to a wider audience. However, the initial enthusiasm soon collided with the reality of a bewildering set, shaped by a script that was constantly snatched away from them and by a working method driven by the director’s daily visceral impulses.

The experience on set, spread across the rugged beauty of Cadaqués, Portlligat, and Sant Pere de Rodes, became a succession of tragicomic episodes. José Lifante humorously recalls the scene in which he and Enric Majó were supposed to come ashore as armed mercenaries, zigzagging across the sea and rowing backwards despite having absolutely no idea how to steer the boat. This unique improvisation ultimately made it into the final cut. Julián Navarro, for his part, remembers the freezing shoot at the monastery, where the cast ended up holding hands and circling Pierre Clémenti in a kind of sardana as they sang the popular song “El señor Ramon,” an unexpected suggestion that Rocha immediately approved.

The creative chaos recalled by the actors coexisted with the constant disappearance of Paco Rabal, whom the crew had to search for along the roads of Cap de Creus. According to their accounts, he would disappear into drug- and alcohol-fuelled binges with Clémenti.

The actors’ final assessment lies somewhere between artistic disappointment and a defence of a singular work of its time. For Lifante, the film ultimately proved a great disappointment, striking him as a “hotchpotch” or heterodox “pastiche” that had not been sufficiently prepared, in which South America was mixed with Catalan and Andalusian folklore with no apparent logic. Navarro likewise recalls the painful sight of an actor of Rabal’s stature mumbling incoherently before the camera, feeling that the “secret script” pushed the actors towards the verge of ridicule.

Nevertheless, despite the difficult circumstances and tensions that marred the shoot, both actors defend the film’s historical significance and its artistic calibre. In this respect, Navarro insists that it should not be dismissed as a mere farce, but rather regarded as a work containing highly powerful elements that invite reflection. He therefore argues that the film should be made accessible so that today’s audiences can rediscover it and draw multiple lessons from it.