Spanish – Reverse Delay

In El bar (Álex de la Iglesia, 2017), an ensemble of citizens find themselves trapped in a bar in downtown Madrid, when a customer is gunned down a moment after exiting the establishment. A claustrophobic crisis ensues, and the characters are predictably overcome with paranoia.

This is a film inspired by current world headlines, particularly those circulating in Europe. The trapped group argue hysterically about what is happening, and the first suspicion, naturally, is that the shooting was an act of terrorism. A litany of 21^st-century European anxieties pour out next from the individuals: xenophobia, prejudice against migrants, fear of epidemics, even worries of a conspiring, authoritarian government. To the film’s credit, this first act of theorizing and bickering includes a few eerie moments, and at one point the mystery is such that it felt anything could happen in the film: that it could pivot to horror, or even surrealism.

Nevertheless, and perhaps as respite from the gravity of its themes, El bar fills itself with humor. Comedy indeed comes from desperation. After the cast of characters has been persuaded that there is no terrorist among them, one becomes convinced that they are all, in fact, merely dreaming. It is not the case though, and the party continues.

Continue reading “Review: ‘El bar’ (Álex de la Iglesia, 2017)”

The history of the Spanish motherland occupies no chapter in the standard Filipino education. Our history classes, of course, say much about the role of Spaniards in our archipelago’s colonization and eventual emergence as an independent nation. But the focus lies on the actions of insulares and peninsulares, the Spaniards who lived in our islands. Not much is told about the affairs of faraway España, and we all but forget our European connections after the American takeover in the time of Heneral Luna.

This July, the Instituto Cervantes de Manila (the Spanish government agency tasked with the promotion of Hispanic culture) is holding a series of film exhibitions entitled La España del Guernica (The Spain of the Guernica). The official aim of the project is “to offer a cinematic vision of the turbulent Spain of the decade.” The decade referred to is the 1930s, the latter years of which witnessed the tumultuous Spanish Civil War. This particular period of Spanish history remains little-known to Filipinos, but it certainly offers a few points for reflection on our own country’s current concerns, as I will claim later.

About the theme of the film series: Guernica is a town in the Basque region of Spain that suffered a horrific aerial bombing in April 1937, in the middle of the civil war. The raid was carried out by the air forces of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, who were then allied with the Nationalist faction in Spain. The terrors of the incident became the subject of Pablo Picasso’s seminal work, simply entitled Guernica, which has been called the “most famous [artwork] ever produced on the subject of war.” (“Eighty years on, Spain may at last be able to confront the ghosts of civil war”, The Guardian.) The painting was first unveiled to the public on July 12, 1937, only a few days away from the first anniversary of the conflict. La España del Guernica commemorates the 80^th anniversary of this unveiling, and the 81^st of the war; as the painting captured the various faces of war on canvas, so did this collection of films, only cinematically.

Continue reading “‘El viaje de Carol’, wars and dictatorships”