27 years have passed since the death of Franco,
and almost as long since the death throes and final disappearance
of a regime, which in its final years was wholly dependent on his
presence, in the most literal sense of the term.
The distance that separates us today from the decline
and fall of the regime allows the generation that lived through the
denial of public freedom to take a less vehement look back at that
dark past. However, we should not forget that it was this same generation
that, in failing to sustain a sufficiently energetic and effective
attitude, showed itself incapable of hastening the end of totalitarianism.
The dictator took his time to die, and it is possible
that the complex this gave rise to continues to affect our generation.
The way of dealing with this frustration often displays a curious
duality. On the one hand, the descriptions of the level of perversity
of the dictator and his regime tend to exaggeration, and on the other,
the legend that has grown up according to which it was our generation
that brought about the end of Francoism.
The film focuses essentially on these two ideas, though
treated with the irony and humour that is lent by the distance of
the events. Thus, we present a portrait of Franco centred on the last
two years of his life, a time in which power is exercised by an ill
and senile dictator, and in which those who surround him have no other
objective than to keep him alive in order to ensure, above all, their
own survival. The time of the cross and the sword has passed, and
the question now is simply one of survival, making use, as in the
legend, of an El Cid who, though half dead, continues to terrify his
adversaries with the ferocious myths of the past.
The authoritarian gestures are by now a mere automatic
reflex that the opponents of the regime seek to present as proof of
a sophisticated perversity. Yet this is done only in order to avoid
the necessity of recognising what has become an irrefutable truth:
that of the decrepitude of power and the crumbling of a regime that
only clings on thanks to the Stockholm syndrome of an entire people.
The interior of El Pardo with its sordid characters
allows the creation of situations of delirium, the consequence of
the fear and servility of those who surround him. In this sense, the
film combines both authentic reality, backed up by documented facts,
and imagined situations that could well have occurred in similar circumstances.
In short, the film narrates a story that flees from
any impulse to revenge or to simple entertainment. It sets out to
reflect, not merely on the shadow cast by a decrepit leader, but also
on the mental impoverishment and ridiculousness that surround the
decadence of absolute power. In this case, humour is no obstacle to
reflection, rather the opposite; it helps to create a perspective,
and perhaps an instructive one, on our history.
