albertomallofres-pantoja Review of Franco: ese hombre

Franco: ese hombre (1964)

But seriously...

[10/10 · 14 May 2003]

OK, I must be something like Grandpa Cebolleta, that nice comic book character who was always telling stories about battles he could never have been involved in. But I´m not that old (or as young as some other commentators). I was born in 1919 (and I´m sorry for being so insisting about my age). I WAS in those battles to which "Franco, Ese Hombre" makes very little reference because during the nearly forty years of Franco´s regime the film directors had the good sense of not touching that subject (The Civil War) more than half-dozen times and never to mortify or vent any kind of anger on the defeated. In exchange, in these nearly three decades of the post-Franco era there must be surely some one hundred films that have used scurrility and mortification as a support for their making. "Sex" (with the most dislocated derivations of Freud and the Marquis of Sade) and a grotesque "triumphalism" (?) have been the basic support of this post-Franco cinema or, to be precise, this "anti-Franco" cinema, because this was and is its nourishing thesis.

Is it not possible to talk about films without ever wallowing in the mire of politics (almost always of the same side, by the way)? Is it not possible to appreciate films for what they are and not for what they "should" be (or, at least, someone thinks they should be)? I see that some "ghosts" that we believed they had disappeared completely in the 60s have come out of their closets again. The Civil War is back with a vengeance (pun intended). We should call Tim Burton - what a delightful film he could make with this amazing ghostly army!

I might add that "Franco, Ese Hombre" is a masterpiece (by your leave, of course).