Writers: Mario Torrecillas, Natalia Durán, Yago Alonso and Enric Pardo
Directors: Carlos Pérez-Reche and Joan Tomas Monfort
Viewers cannot consider Tender Metalheads to be pretentious. To the contrary, the animation in the film is basic rather than polished.
This is intentional. Based upon the childhood of cartoonist Juanjo Sáez, the film tells of Juanjo, one of two adolescent males upon whom the story focuses, who aspires to be an illustrator or designer. The animation is, therefore, of a standard which Juanjo could realistically achieve at an early stage in his artistic development. The action in the film takes place in the centre of the screen, backgrounds are static even sketchy, and scenes tend to be either close-up of characters talking or long shots with little in between.
Characters are animated in a decidedly back to basics style as if drawn in a rush. Their faces are usually blank with features -eyes, mouths- appearing only in moments of high tension to demonstrate a burst of emotion. The concept of an adolescent animating the film allows for one of the few decent gags – when the smooth singer Phil Collins appears in a fantasy sequence the metalhead illustrator imagines him with an arse for a head.
In Barcelona in 1991 Juanjo and Miquel are chalk and cheese. The former comes from a loving but cossetting family and is prone to anxiety and asthma attacks. Miquel comes from a chaotic family, as his father is in gaol and his mother tends to forget her sorrows in alcohol and one-night stands, he raises his sisters and adopts a defensive, aggressive attitude towards the outside world.
Paired together in school Juanjo introduces Miquel to heavy metal music and finds his new friend to be a highly enthusiastic convert to the cause. Together the friends plan how to raise funds to finance their becoming a heavy metal band, but obstacles arise in particular one of them becoming distracted by Clara, a girl who is not only flirtatious but has a wider taste in music moving towards alternative rock.
The characters are realistically flawed. Miquel does not hesitate to exploit Juanjo, insisting he do more than his share of joint school projects and borrowing his precious record collection. The harsh reality of life in the working-class neighbourhood is not overlooked. When Miquel takes his friend to a derelict building in which he stores alcohol stolen from his mother there is the sudden shocking sight of rooms full of zombie-like junkies drugged into oblivion and sketched in pale shades rather than colour.
Like the minimalist style of animation, the drama in the film is low-key. Child abuse, either physical or sexual is avoided and the characters are all straight. This approach does, not prevent revelatory scenes from having a powerful emotional impact. Having maintained a defensive, couldn’t care less attitude throughout the movie Miquel is moved to tears witnessing Juanjo’s family having a Christmas meal and unable to avoid comparisons with his own situation.
The plot of Tender Metalheads is closer to soap opera than high drama. As a result, the film is more gently moving than dramatically stirring.
Tender Metalheads is screening at the Raindance Film Festival 2023.
