Los últimos de Filipinas: The Spatio-temporal Coordinates of Francoism

Los últimos de Filipinas (Last Stand in the Philippines, Antonio Román, 1945) is one of the most popular Spanish films of all times. Drawing from Henri Bergson’s notion of temporality, this chapter argues that the film revolves around a politics of time both informing and informed by totalitarian kitsch aesthetics. The film’s portrayal of a besieged colonial church standing defiantly against a Tagalog rebellion in the small town of Baler during the Spanish-American War in1898 transformed the colonial reality of the Philippines into political myth; a myth which, I argue, condensed to perfection Francoist kitsch ideology.

Romancero Marroquí and the Francoist Kitsch Politics of Time

This chapter examines the colonial politics of Franco’s Spain through an analysis of Romancero marroquí (Morrocan Romance, Carlos Velo 1938), a documentary about Spanish Morocco produced during the Spanish Civil War by Franco’s provisional government. While in traditional colonial representations the colony becomes an alluring, albeit inferior, other to the colonizing Metropolis in need of progress and civilization, in its Francoist representation Spanish-Moroccan society becomes a model to be imitated, a kitsch paradise opposing—like Francoism itself—modern materialism and parliamentary democracy.

Under the Sign of Saturn: The Labyrinth of Moral Choices in Francoist Spain

Linking the figure of the labyrinth, often associated with the history of Spain, to the famous Goya painting of Saturn Devouring his Son, this chapter examines the foreign language Oscar nominee, El laberinto del fauno (Pan´s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, 2006). It argues that the film aims to undermine Francoist kitsch notion of melancholic temporality. Goya´s painting is often read as an allegory of the brutal repression of Spanish Liberalism by Fernando VII during the second and third decades of the nineteenth-century. As in the painting, which references Cronus, the Greek God of time, in the movie, Francoist political repression is also associated with the obsession with time of Captain Vidal, the film’s fascist villain. The notion of a ‘lost’ historical time devouring itself is linked in the film to the notion of labyrinth as a historical loop and mystical space with Captain Vidal, as the Minotaur lurking at its center, devours its victims over time, much like Cronus, Ferdinand VII, or Franco himself. The film symbolically ends this repressive cycle by rescuing Captain’s Vidal newborn baby from his fascist grip.

Introduction

Francoist kitsch is interpreted as an essential part of a politically eclectic discourse whose study brings together aesthetics, film theory and the politics of fascist Spain. Drawing on conceptual work on fascism by thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Christopher Bollas, Mark Neocleous and Susan Sontag, and on studies on kitsch by Hermann Broch, Matei Calinescu, Gillo Dorfles, Umberto Eco and Saul Friedländer, among others, my theoretical framework elucidates how Francoism appropriated the fetishistic nature of cinema and kitsch aesthetics, relying on its potential both to mobilize and secure ideological control over the Spanish citizenry.

Balada triste de trompeta: Of Ghosts and Clowns

This chapter examines Balada triste de trompeta (The Last Circus, Alex de La Iglesia, 2010) nominated for fifteen Goya awards, the most prestigious Spanish film awards. Balada is a self-conscious kitsch re-elaboration of the traditional theme of the sad clown, a traditional motif of kitsch aesthetics. It traces the protagonist´s transformation from sad clown to serial killer against the background of Spanish popular culture—particularly popular music and Television programs—a pseudo-official kitsch culture closely monitored by Franco’s censors, whose ideological contradictions are exposed in the process. In Hitchcock-like fashion, the film reaches its climax at the top of the gigantic cross at The Valley of the Fallen, Franco´s monumental mausoleum and his burial site. There the film symbolically reclaims Spain from Franco´s Kitsch, fascist grasp.

Franco, ese hombre: From Kitsch-Artist to Kitsch-Man

Franco ese hombre (Franco, that Man, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1964) is a documentary about Franco by the director of Raza made to commemorate Franco´s “Twenty Five Years of Peace” political campaign. Made twenty-two years later than Raza, Franco ese hombre aims through its kitsch aesthetics to portray the elderly, historical Franco as the messianic hero needed to save Spain. In doing so, it completely rewrites Spanish history according to Francoist historical, ideological and political clichés. By means of a curious narrative splitting, Franco becomes both the protagonist of Spanish history and the ideal spectator of it, as the documentary comes to an end by showing us Franco inside a film theater at his official residence watching the documentary of his own exploits. From being a purveyor of kitsch, Franco reveals himself to be a kitsch-man who, believing his own lies was the ideal consumer of kitsch aesthetics.

The Petrified Tears of General Franco: Kitsch and Fascism in José Luis Sáenz de Heredia’s Raza

Francoist kitsch aesthetic and its proximity to the realm of political power is best exemplified by the film Raza (Race, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1941), whose screenplay was written, under a pseudonym, by Franco himself. This chapter argues that the film exemplifies what Hermann Broch and Saul Friedländer have pinpointed as the essence of kitsch—the mixing of aesthetic and ethical categories culminating in the fetishization of suffering, violence and death.

Viridiana: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

Viridiana is a critically acclaimed film directed in 1961 (made with special permission by Franco himself) by world-renowned director Luis Buñuel. Buñuel’s film was the official entry representing Franco’s Spain at the International Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Palme d’Or. Vigorously denounced by the Vatican’s newspaper as blasphemous, the film was immediately banned in Spain until Franco’s death. This chapter reads Viridiana allegorically as a film that undermines Francoist kitsch aesthetics from within. By means of its intricate mise-en-scène of the gothic, decadent mansion of its perverse protagonist, a subtle portrayal of Franco himself, the film insightfully depicts Francoism as a rarefied ideology, as a sublimated space suspended in a kitsch melancholy bubble lost in time and space.

Surcos: Neorealism, Film Noir, and the Puppet Master

Critically acclaimed as a milestone of Spanish cinema, Surcos (Furrows, J.A. Nieves Conde, 1951) is the film that single-handedly revolutionized Spanish cinema by introducing the spirit of Neorealism and Film Noir. Through a comparative analysis of the famous boarding sequence of Citizen Kane and few examples from Roberto Rossellini’s early films, this chapter argues that the film’s apparent appropriation of Italian neorealism and also Film Noir and, particularly, its internal strife between its progressive neorealist aesthetic and its fascist message, comes into sharper focus when seen through the lens of kitsch aesthetics. Despite its neorealist and noir appearance, Surcos is in fact a kitsch film that encapsulates Spanish fascist ideology even more insidiously than the previous ones precisely by not being an overtly propagandistic film.