Ben O Shea-El 47: It's One Of The Many Great Spanish Films.

Ben O’Shea chatted to the guys about the Spanish hit film EL 47. Set in 70s Barcelona, the film may seem like it’s just about a bus route.. but Ben stresses it’s about so much more that.

Showing as part of the Spanish Film Festival, Ben would encourage anyone that loves a feel-good British film to check it out. Lisa asked how many empanadas Ben would rate it?  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with Beno from a bit of John
Fanam to a bit of Benoche Morning. I don't know
if I belong in the in the same conversation as Farnsie,
but I'll take it. I'll take it, Benzi. What do
you got for us? Okay? So if I told you
there was a feel good movie, right, feel good movie

(00:21):
about a true piece of history that no one's ever
heard of, about a humble bus driver who's taken it
upon himself to hijack the bus with his regular patrons
on board as as a form of activism to save
his community, you'd think, oh, this is a British movie,
isn't it. He probably starts Jim Broadband. I bet Jim

(00:41):
Jim Broadband. It would be the bus driver. I bet.
I bet his long suffering wife at home would be
Helen Mirren and she'd be going, come on, Darlsy, still
caring on about that bus route. And that's that. You
that's a movie, right, that's a movie. But it's not.
It's not. It's not. Well, you know you're going to
this and the first thing you is, firstly, it's not

(01:01):
British because everybody's speaking Spanish this movie. That I'm about
to tell you about L forty seven, which, for those
out there who were curious, means the forty seven. It's
a pretty impressive feat of translation. So L forty seven
is the designation given to a bus route in Barcelona. Barcelona. Yeah,
and so just like that, you know, the number ninety

(01:22):
six bus that goes out to Crawley or whichever numbers.
And so back in the seventies, Barcelona was a very
different city to what it is now. I think a
lot of people probably see pictures of Barcelona on Instagram
for their friends are on their European summer holidays. At
the moment, you know, all the gaudy architecture was still there,
but it was a city that had a lot of
social upheaval because people from all over Spain, impoverished areas

(01:47):
had traveled and set up shanty suburbs on the outskirts
of the city, and the local authorities and the local
Barcelona people didn't like all of you know, these interlopers
coming in, and so they discriminated against them, gave them
all the bad jobs. They didn't have running water in
their communities, they didn't have paved roads, they were up
in the hills, high hills around Barcelona, so they couldn't

(02:08):
even really get down into the city to work. There
was no public transport. This one bloke, a real guy,
Manolo Vitale, was a bus driver. He'd raised his family
in one of these shanty towns and was he kind
of had a gutful of the situation that his family
was dealing with, and all of his mates they couldn't
get ahead. They didn't think it was very fair. He
was driving his bus every day, talking to talking to

(02:30):
the lawyers on board the bus, talking to you know,
a university professors, people who work for the council. And
one day he's had this idea, all the true story
that he's going to hijack the bus. He just stops
it one day in the middle of Barcelona, goes all right,
everybody get out, and they go what are you doing, Manolo,
what are you doing? And he goes, I'm going to
take this bus and I'm going to prove to the
council that it can get up these unpaved, terrible potholed

(02:53):
roads all the way to the top of the mountain
outside Barcelona, and then they'll give public transport to my
community and we'll be able to have good jobs, all
this kind of stuff, and he was expecting everybody to
get off the bus. The whole bus load of people
go no, we're with you, We're going to stay. Let's
do it, unity, let's do it, or whatever that is
in Spanish Aribar. Technically I got that from Speedy goes out.

(03:20):
But that's good enough, I think. And so and so,
sure enough, you know, he drives the bus up the hill.
The authorities are against him, all this kind of and
it's one of those big, kind of like Constantina buses
for the people. And it wasn't an easy drive up
the hill anyway, and so and so, in the process
of doing this he has he has kind of changed
the fabric of society of Barcelona, made it into the
city that it is today. It wouldn't be the city

(03:42):
it is today if it wasn't for this one bloke.
And this film was released in Spain. It was a massive,
massive hit. He won all the Goya Awards, which is
like the Spanish Oscars, and it's playing at the moment
as part of the Spanish Film Festival, which is happening
at Pallace Cinemas in the city and Luna Essex and
Frio and Luna in Leadville. So it's one of the many,

(04:02):
many great Spanish films. This one is. It's such a
heart warming film fans, and the film was like such
a huge hit in Spain. Do you know what they
did to recognize Manolo vital They named a bus stop
and then stop, So there you go, he made it.

(04:23):
He made it in the end, and so yeah, it's
for people who love those those British feel good films.
This is exactly up your alley. But there's there's a
lot of amazing films at the Spanish Film Festival, which
runs until July two. They've got an incredible film industry
in Spain, and of course I've produced so many great
actors and directors over the years, so I encourage everybody
to check it out. Everyone inspiring. How many and panades?

(04:47):
I don't even know if that's you're giving it three
and a half, which I'm thought about this more. I
would have learned how to say that in Spanish dress.
I don't know what half dress and half a dress were.
Control colas sounds good, Thank you bet, Thanks guys,