This won’t be our last Christmas

Cinema chronicle of Bruno de Seguins Pazzis:

When he is on the verge of breaking up, a couple goes on vacation with their 3 children in their family home. They decided to divorce after Christmas without telling their children so as not to spoil the party. But the latter discover their project and decide to lock up their parents until they are reconciled…

With: Mamen Garcia (Abuela), Teresa Ferrer (Mom), Carlos Aguillo (Dad), Ana Bravo (Irina), Eva Bravo (Belen), Juan Sanchez (Angel), Miguel Alejandro Serrano Chusmari, Juan Manuel Cotelo (the boss)

Let’s celebrate in peace… This is the original translation of the Spanish title, a title that makes less reference to the openly Christian character of the film, unlike the title chosen by the distributor for France, Saje Distribution. Producer, director, screenwriter and actor Juan Manuel Cotelo is resolutely committed to Christian cinema. After realizing The Last Peak (2010), a documentary about a Spanish priest who died accidentally in the mountains at the age of 42, Land of Mary (2013), a “docu-fiction” about people, some famous, who have had an experience of meeting the Blessed Virgin, Footprints (2016) on the spiritual experience of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, he realizes The greatest gift (2018) a feature film on forgiveness in which he mixes fiction and real testimonies of reconciliation around the world. With It won’t be our last Christmas it passes to the total cinematographic fiction on the mode of the musical family comedy around the religious festival of Christmas.

Mom and dad are arguing, arguing, confronting and complaining about different situations. The children, who suffer from these fights, are looking for a way for the parents to talk to each other differently, to be able to resolve their differences and rediscover the love that seems to have disappeared. If the film does not tell the story of all families, it tells a story that many families know and the situations that parents and children may have to face, some of which concern almost all families (a father caught up by his profession to the detriment of his wife and children, the intrusion of computers and telephones that disturb the family balance, etc.). The whole is treated in the tone of the musical, alternating dialogue scenes and songs. These are unquestionably the ones that catch the viewer the most. The second of these musical sequences deserves to be mentioned because it was filmed in a rather virtuoso sequence shot. The staging multiplies the visual allegories in relation to the story which itself constantly refers to the Catholic religion. The characters are endearing even if sometimes caricatural and Juan Manuel Cotelo makes an amusing composition of the character of the villain looking like Mephisto. A careful imaging of this story which shows children who behave badly, but ultimately less badly than their parents, and who for the good of the latter must punish them, ends up making this film which conveys Christian values ​​a film to watch with the family at the approach and at the time of the Christmas party.

Bruno de Seguins-Pazzis

This won’t be our last Christmas – Le Salon Beige