Watching Life Go By On a typical bench, in a typical square, in a typical city, three men in their thirties – Nandi, Roberto Carlos and Grabi – let time go by as pint-drinking existentialists of the barrio while they pontificate on women, sex (which they don’t practise) and the meaning of life. Such is their leisurely evolution until a girl upsets the balance which would seem to have chained them to their world of loafers. The Internationalization of the Pint “Thirty years have passed and they debate between the dignity of not accepting undignified work from never having had to break their backs themselves. They go on pilfering from their mothers for their pints of beer, letting life go by without them”. This is how Jesus Ponce, director from Seville of this bitter-sweet comedy, defines the main characters of his latest film – as people who seem not to have found inspiration in none of the innumerable corners of the world. “They are the kind of people sitting on benches in-turn in every square. I have seen them in my barrio in Seville – drinking Cruzcampo beer, in Carabanchel drinking Mahou, or in Buenos Aires drinking Quilmes. And, although I haven’t been there, they are surely in China, too, in some red square, drinking Chairman Mao’s brand of beer”. Jesus Ponce returns to directing after his big hit with his first work, 15 dias contigo, to tell the story of these three loafers who “aren’t”: “They aren’t unemployed, they aren’t workers, they aren’t students, they aren’t criminals, they aren’t honourable people – they simply aren’t”. They aren’t anything, but they have a lot to say: all of life is passing in front of them, while they wait sitting on a bench. If you would like to see it, “drop by” a Spanish cinema starting 1st February.

www.altafilms.com/