I guess we've all thought about it at some point.. What will our last days be like?? In a society as fast-paced as ours, It seems increasingly evident that old age has become less of a concern. Lake, in appearance, the knot of the traditional family nucleus, the question that arises is, what do we do with our elders? on the horizon, The figure of the residence is presented as a solution to a process in which the elderly seem to be left behind, far from everything, not to disturb. However, this output does not satisfy everyone. As an alternative, In the city of León we found a small hostel that, for more than twenty years, welcomes into its rooms those who, far from resigning himself to assuming that destiny, They seek a more cordial and humane environment in which they are more than just patients to care for.. It's about feeling, simply, personas.
This is the plot line of Spain Hostel, one of the documentaries that today Monday 16/11 you can see at the festival The cabin that is being held in Valencia, from last Friday until the end of the week. Directed by Chus Domínguez and Inma Álvarez, Hotel Spain introduces us to this small microcosm, a journey through the intimacy of people who, although they do not express it out loud, Its objective is to conquer their dignity where society has decided not to make them visible.. We spoke with Inma Álvarez about all this.
How do you start this project??
Bueno, this hostel is my place. I am the owner, with my sister. It was from our mother and our. Our mother retired and now it belongs to my sister and me. I think we try [raise this project] like twenty years ago. I told my friend [Chus Dominguez], who makes movies, I wanted to do something because that way of living caught my attention a lot.. we try, but it didn't flow. The camera was very large and very present, there was a lack of naturalness and freshness. We let the project rest and about seven years ago we tried another way in which we went from room to room, telling every story. But several problems arose and it could not be. But now Chus had created an anthropological audiovisual art laboratory at the Museum of Contemporary Art where they work with groups, older people, students, miners' wives, and from there we saw that something could arise. We wanted to try to see how it worked and we bought a small camera. We start with Pilarina, one of the women, and when I was already involved in the project, It began to not seem so strange to others.. And so it emerged. When I see the movie, I see that this is what I felt I wanted to tell.. It's a day to day that seems very special to me..
How do residents get to this hostel and how do they organize themselves on a day-to-day basis??
Well look, It's just that they've been coming for a long time.. We are not advertised anywhere, It's a simple business, lifetime. We've been there since eighty-four. [The hostel] has gone through several stages. Before there were students, workers, travelers, prostitutes, there has been everything. There has always been a lot of life out there. And then older people started arriving.. The profile of the clientele was changing. Notice that I have wanted to do this for twenty years and there were already older people. And why are they coming?? Well because “I don't know who's cousin is here”, What if “someone told me that you pick up people here?”, etc. They come like this, because they are telling you. There have been people who have been here and they call them from the residences, because they have requested it, They leave and then come back because they don't want to be in the residence. And others because, being in residence, have heard about the hostel, they come and go. And so. It's coming alone.
The hostel offers a different way to face this stage of life. In that sense, What would you say is the most relevant for residents??
Well, look what things these people have not already experienced.. They will have had a complicated or very good life, I don't care, but, Can't you end your last days in a decent way?? I tell you that I have gone to a residence a few times and I don't see that way of ending life.. There was a woman who had been in a nursing home for four years., I had depressive tendencies and I didn't want to go back there at all.. His children lived in Switzerland, another in Italy, another in Murcia and another in San Sebastián. And here he had his room, her things… There is a woman in the movie who has 96 tacos. Well with 93 left the residence. He had been with us nine years. Her daughter said, suddenly, come home with me. They were at home for two months, They argued or whatever and they sent her to the residence. He was there for a year and the woman couldn't because she still had vitality.. We do many things to them, how to go run errands for them, etc., but then you realize that they want to do things for themselves. Won't we want to do our thing? You want to continue being capable. There are times when I could do many things to them, but they want to do it. And it's great for them. They need to do it. One sets the table, another dries the cutlery… They don't comment on it, but I see that they do it and I think it is good for them. I want them to do it.
One of the great conflicts of this stage of life is loneliness., especially, when they have no other family to support themselves. How do you perceive this problem in them??
I see that there is a tendency to isolate oneself, at minimum effort. Sometimes, I force them to go out into the street. I tell them, “come, Get dressed, we're going out.”. You have to force them to do something, many times, they like it. I encourage others to get together and go for a walk.. But they have that tendency. Mira, During the pandemic they started playing cards, something they had never done before. They formed circles and chatted after eating. There is a very curious thing, that has always caught my attention, and sometimes you enter a room and it seems that there is someone who is passing through. You see two pears, an orange, maybe a toothbrush, the cheapest, as a child, a transistor and the sneakers. Nothing else. That seems amazing to me.
Regarding this, One part that the hostel seems to contribute is, precisely, that space question, the fact of having a place that is your own and, as you say, your things. Besides, The documentary is structured like this, visiting room by room. To what extent is one's own importance as an element of identity?
Well look, For some it doesn't matter at all. For others, Yeah. There is a woman who came in about three years ago who said she wanted the room completely empty and white.. Nothing else. She is very visually impaired and did not want to go to a nursing home.. One day he met a woman who was here in a cafeteria and told her.. He came one day to ask and within a week he had already settled in.. He made a selection of what he had in his pisin and brought it to him. This is the one that has contributed the most of itself. The others, Maybe they brought a bigger television, but little more. There is an absolute detachment from things, I notice. something wonderful.
And what do you think this detachment is due to??
Well look, to become practical. Don't know, but I've been watching that part for a long time. I suffer from attachment (laughter) because I take everything I find, in garbage, in junkyards, I take everything. So I haven't gotten to that point.. I want to do a screening and I can't. That's why I admire them, really. That simplicity, I admire her. For others, the objects they are most attached to are recent objects., some photo, yes indeed, but nothing that you say that they have carried with them all their lives. one of them, The most he has is a photo of him standing in the military. It is the most intimate thing you have.
In today's societies there has been a process of destructuring of the conventional family. How do you value this process??
Well look, as we said before, it could be that each one is on their own side, there are others who do not have children. I think that living forever with your children has been lost for a long time.. In today's society I no longer see it. It is not even questioned. It is taken for granted that residency is the option, what happens is that the residence works the way it works. I have seen people who are in wheelchairs and it's time to go to bed and the people who help them run and take them to the race because they can't cope., because there are not enough staff. We have a terrible problem there.. I don't understand that, having a society as aged as ours, don't look at this, why don't you take care of yourself, why don't we have decent places.
Don't you see a relationship between this destructuring of the family model and these situations and that, that's why, the model cannot be reversed? Let's say that the family was an organic element that allowed continuity and now we are looking for a substitute that is not always adequate because it is always artificial..
Yeah, I believe that we have lost respect for the figure of the old man.. They were previously respected figures. Your opinion, all. Not now, Now we say “but”, what are you saying?”, what do you know?” Mira, I see that some take a while to say what they want, because it is a bit difficult for them to communicate, but they have it here [in the head]. It's hard for them to say, but they have it. And even if they are there for a while, when they finish you know what they meant. It's just a little more time, nothing else. But I think the problem is that we are no longer at that pace., we have lost it. and man, sometimes, there will be a little nonsense, but, who does not deviate? We all rave. Each one at his own pace and in his own sling. But, with them, they feel like they still want to say things.
One of the curiosities of the film is that interaction between the camera, the fact of making the film, and they, to the point that one of the characters takes the camera and, somehow, becomes director. How did you come up with the idea and what was the intention??
That idea was Chus's. I was wondering, How do you think it will work if they themselves get involved?? and I told him, bueno, it's still complicated, but you can try. I think it was better that they were inside because, if they felt observed, like the first time we tried, they would live it differently. I think it works quite well. Some of them took it as if it were homework (laughter). Oh well, as in everything, some were more involved than others. Some are more curious than others. But what is true is that those months there was an atmosphere.
How have they looked? What has it been like for them to see their own world?
They haven't seen it finished yet. Yes it is true that one day we made a mock movie, We showed it to them and they loved it.. They are natural like life itself. I saw it when they looked at the camera and did it as if challenging it..
One of the characters says: “I don't want to die”. deep down, in the end, no one wants to leave this world.
Mira, there is one of the women who, nightly, He comes to give me a hug and tells me: “just in case”. Sometimes I'm just finishing clarifying something and she's already waiting to tell me.. And of course, It's true that you could die. or me. In any case, death is experienced in a very natural way there. Recently someone who had been there for twenty-one years died.. Someone told me and I saw that the door to the room was open. The man was there, but no one seemed scared or surprised. Simply, it's like that. Man, that fear is there, Of course, because we all have it. We haven't learned to accept that yet., but I see that, when it arrives, they get over it well.
