Diego Luna wears a lot of hats on this show. In addition to creating it/originating the idea, he hosts the series and has also produced and directed the second season. His hand is especially apparent in this episode, which, by its nature, draws attention to how it was made.
The conceit of Pan y circo is simple. In each episode, Luna brings together five people to discuss a particular topic through the lens of their areas of expertise, the conversation happening over the course of a sumptuous meal prepared by a talented chef.
COVID hit after the filming but before the release of the first season, so Luna and his team decided to pause, innovate, and figure out how to create a new first episode that would take place in quarantine. As became so familiar to us in 2020, the dinner guests now meet over Zoom and the chef is Luna himself, who cooked the meal according the COVID protocols and had it delivered to the guests before filming. In that brave new world of the 2020 COVID era, Luna and his guests discuss the wide-reaching effects of the pandemic.
I feel like the early days of COVID caused many in the entertainment industry to want to pull back the curtain a little on their process. Rather than the usual movie/TV magic, there was a sense of “we’re all in this together” and a desire to let the audience see the strings a bit more, as it were. That’s true here, where part of the episode includes clips of Zoom meetings between Luna and his team prior to filming the dinner, brainstorming how they can make this work. We also see Luna asking a chef for advice on how to prepare a meal in a COVID-safe manner.
Once the Zoom dinner begins, it’s the same “artificial digital togetherness” so many got used to and later discarded as people decided they were cool with the pandemic. That quarantine feeling of, “This is weird, and it’s definitely not ‘normal,’ but I’m so glad to see other people’s faces I’ll take it!” Once Luna instructs them on how to reheat their various courses, the ball gets rolling and the discussion starts.
(A quick side note about the meal: the dishes—homemade soup and vegetarian lasagna, with fresh bread and guava rolls from a bakery—make my mouth water something fierce. Also, Luna and his team go all in on the boxes they prep for the guests. In addition to three courses, bread, and wine, the boxes also include salt and pepper shakers and a bottle of olive oil.)
The guests in this episode include an activist, an author, a social psychologist, an epidemiologist, and a chef. Together with Luna, they discuss all sorts of aspects of the pandemic, from the personal to the professional to the societal. Just a few topics that get pulled into the larger discussion of the pandemic are Mexico’s economic disparities, the fate of restaurants, increases in domestic violence, and access to abortion under travel restrictions.
The author initially thought he’d do well in lockdown, since he writes from home anyway, but now the rest of his family is home with him. “And that changes the environment,” he observes. “And I live my lockdown, and I live their lockdown, too.”
The chef wrestles with public safety and looking out for his employees, closing his restaurant due to government mandates but worried if there’ll be a restaurant to go back to at the end of lockdown. He also talks about the need to reinvent how they do things in light of the pandemic. He says, “If we did not make these changes from the bottom up at this time, we were going to be spending all the emotional and economic effort to keep things the same as before, instead of really rethinking it and making this fundamental reassessment.”
Interspersed amid the conversation are clips from political press conferences, infographics, and footage of the quiet world outside. Additionally, we see footage from an interview Luna had with the undersecretary of prevention and health promotion.
The whole thing offers a nice mix of facts, debate, and more personal observations. This isn’t the sort of show that features people from different “sides” talking about an issue. While the guests all come from different fields, their ideologies are more aligned, and so it’s more about a group of likeminded people bringing their own experience to a particular problem. It’s like these are the guests Luna chose for a dinner party—the point is to inform and collaborate, not prove anyone right or wrong.
I will say that the subtitles can be a little difficult sometimes. Because this is a show that uses onscreen text in different ways, from infographics to guests’ occupations/titles, there are times when the English translation for a graphic cuts off the translation for what one of the participants is saying, and vice versa. I have no doubt it works perfectly well in Spanish, but the show is so packed with information, both visually and auditorily, that the subtitles don’t always know which thread to follow.
Luna makes for a good host. In his opening narration, recalling the before-times with, “We were happy and didn’t know it,” he brings a soft compassion, and the building-the-episode scenes are relatable as he works to navigate COVID with everyone else. I enjoy watching him instruct the guests about the different parts of their meal (the author needs a little direction just to open the box!), and in his interview with the undersecretary, he’s friendly and personable without throwing softballs.
This was a really interesting question he had for the epidemiologist, in response to a discussion about globalization and how nations will sink or swim together:
“Invoking that speed or that connectivity or that globalization, doctor, right now some vaccines are being developed and we are seeing a certain international cooperation to get that vaccine. Is there a world where that cooperation could happen in prevention? Or will that coordination always come from disaster?”
On the whole, a nice first episode, and I think going back to address COVID, knowing the rest of the season was filmed prior to the pandemic hitting, was the right call. Here are my first impressions.
Recommend?
In General – If you’re interested in informative/talk show-type series, I think I would. I like how it’s set up as a dinner, and the conversation goes in some interesting directions.
Diego Luna – While I definitely prefer seeing Luna act, this is a neat project, and I like his ethos behind it. If you’re interested in Luna as a person beyond just his work as an actor, I’d say it’s worth a watch.
Warnings
Thematic elements, language, and drinking.
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