Roberto Pérez Toledo | Los que odian la navidad (The Ones Who Hate Christmas) / 2018

i saw santa kissing santa claus

by Douglas Messerli

 

Roberto Pérez Toledo (screenwriter and director) Los que odian la navidad (The Ones Who Hate Christmas) / 2018 [4 minutes]

 

Two men (David Laguía and Adrián Panadero) wake up in bed in Spanish director Roberto Pérez Toledo’s mini-film of 2018, both of them complaining about the alarm clock awakening them. They hate their job which involves handing out brochures; they can’t stand the children or their parents, they hate the filled shopping center and the endless Christmas carols (particularly the songs of Mariah Carey); in short, they “hate Christmas.”

     As they rise to dress, one dares the other to tell him something “cool” about the holiday. One gets a chance to see one’s parents, he tosses out the first reason that comes to mind. But the other puts that down with the fact that if you have avoided your parents for the other 364 days of the year, it’s a not a logical reason.

      Well, then the gifts. Given that his parents have not bought him a gift since he was 18, outside of maybe a pair socks, and that his lover cannot afford anything since they’ve already spent 200 euros of the 400 they are earning, “gifts” is clearly not the answer.

     They begin dressing, and we quickly realize that these two are playing Santa Clauses in the shopping mall they hate. The one who has tried imagine what is good about Christmas finally looks at the other, half dressed in his Santa suit, to say, “So I now know another reason why I like Christmas.”

       “What?”

       “Because last year I asked Santa Claus…”

       “Yourself?”

       “No, the real one. …For someone like you in my life.”

       They kiss, and we all watch Santa kissing Santa Claus.

       As they walk in hand to work, one of them says that in the toy shop a kid asked him if Santa had a girlfriend.

       “What did you say?”

       “That Santa can have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Santa can have whatever he wants.”

        This piece of candycane-sweet filmmaking goes nicely in your Christmas stocking.

 

Los Angeles, December 22, 2022

Reprinted in World Cinema Review (December 2022).