University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Dictatorial duress: a cinematic mapping of Madrid from dictatorship to democracy

(USC Thesis Other)

Dictatorial duress: a cinematic mapping of Madrid from dictatorship to democracy

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content DICTATORIAL DURESS:
A CINEMATIC MAPPING OF MADRID FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY
By
Jacqueline Beland Sheean
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
(COMPARATIVE MEDIA AND CULTURE)
August 2020
Copyright 2020 Jacqueline Beland Sheean

ii

For my mother, Kate Beland, who taught me to be curious.
And for my father, Joe Sheean, who taught me to be skeptical.
Your love and support mean the world to me.

iii
Acknowledgements

Many of the ideas in this dissertation are not mine alone. They are the result of years of generative
conversations, debates, and arguments with colleagues, professors, mentors, and even a few
strangers. It would be impossible to list them all here. I owe my most profound insights to Julián
Gutiérrez Albilla, a caring mentor and an exacting reader who always knew when to push my ideas
further. Some of my ideas he disagrees with, but they were nevertheless improved and refined by
his thoughtful critique. Erin Graff-Zivin and Akira Lippit have also been profoundly influential in
my thinking from the beginning and my work has benefitted from their suggestions over the years.
Patricia Keller officially joined the committee in the final stretch, but she was an important
interlocutor all along. Anna Krakus, Samuel Steinberg, and Sherry Velasco were readers for my
qualifying exams and many of the ideas in this dissertation originated in courses and conversations
with them. These scholars serve as extraordinary models as I begin my career and think about my
own role as a professor and researcher.
The University of Southern California has been my intellectual home for the better part of
a decade. I have been fortunate to share this space with outstanding colleagues and mentors who
challenged me to think across an interdisciplinary context. These include Roberto Díaz, Antonia
Szabari, Olivia Harrison, Natania Meeker, Panivong Norindr, Peggy Kamuf, Edwin Hill, Vanessa
Schwartz, W.J.T. Mitchell, Ronald Mendoza de Jesús, Natalie Belisle, Nike Nivar Ortíz, Kendra
Atkin, Guillermo Rodríguez Romaguera, Ali Kulez, Vanessa Ovalle Pérez, Sarah Skillen, Erin
Mizrahi, Vincent Cervantes, Kristen Besinque, César Pérez Sánchez, Sylvie Lydon, Jane Kass,
Viola Lasmana, Jayson Lantz, and Nora Méndez. During my time at USC, my research was
generously supported by the doctoral program in Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture,
the Del Amo Foundation, the Visual Studies Research Institute, and the Graduate School.

iv
As an undergraduate, I benefited from the guidance of Gina Herrmann, Lisa Digiovanni,
and Pedro García Caro at the University of Oregon and Anna Cox at Willamette University.
Without their encouragement I would have never imagined a career in academia. I owe special
thanks to Robert Davis, who graciously led our unruly study abroad group to Granada in 2007,
and whose enthusiasm for Iberian culture was clearly infectious. I have also benefitted from the
feedback and advice from those I met through academic conferences and workshops over the years.
In particular, Steven Marsh, Camila Moreiras Vilarós, Tamara Mitchell, Carlos Varón González,
Sarah Thomas, Leigh Mercer, and Jacques Lezra have provided influential support and friendship.
Chapter One appears as an article titled Mon ment and Memory: The Valley of the Fallen
and i Clal Achie in the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies (Vol. 23, 2019). The
suggestions from the anonymous reviewers led to substantial revisions for this dissertation. In
addition, part of Chapter Two will appear in the forthcoming collection Media Crossroads:
Intersections of Space and Identity in Screen Cultures (Duke UP: 2021), edited by Ángel Daniel
Matos, Paula J. Massood, and Pamela Robertson Wojcik. I would like to thank these editors and
the anonymous reviewers for their very useful feedback on this piece.
Writing a list of acknowledgements is a testament to how wonderfully collective academic
thinking can be. But if thinking is a collaborative, social enterprise, writing is often a lonely one especially so as I completed this dissertation in social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I
am grateful for my neighbors at the Hollywood Capri, especially Lisa Kolsch and Lisa Lipstein,
who shared their wine and their good humor and generally kept me sane. Finally, Jahan Shariff
and the pandemic reading group inspired me in the final stretch by reminding me that the world is
full of engaged readers and that a written text is just the beginning of a new conversation.

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication ii

Acknowledgements iii

List of Figures vi

Abstract vii

Introduction
From the Valley of the Fallen to the Torres KIO 1

Chapter 1
Mapping Memory:
El Valle de los Caídos and its Afterimages 31

Chapter 2
Mapping the Economic Miracle:
Peiheal Ciing hogh Elo de la Igleia La semana del asesino 78

Chapter 3
Mapping La Movida:
Movement and Politics in the Early Films of Pedro Almodóvar 109

Chapter 4
Mapping the Disenchantment:
Erratic Wandering in le de la Igleia El día de la bestia 148

Chapter 5
Mapping the Crisis:
Historical Materialism and Creative Documentary 185

Bibliography 222

vi
List of Figures

1.1 Leah Lei photo series containing images of the televised proclamation
ceremony for King Juan Carlos I 5
2.1 Still image from NO-DO No. 848A, April 6 1959 49
2.2 Still image from NO-DO No. 1260B, February 27, 1967 49
2.3 Still image from NO-DO No. 848A, April 6 1959 50
2.4 Still image from NO-DO No. 1041A, December 17, 1962 50
2.5 Co (Jan Caeo and Enie Naa) 1982 aining, El Caudillo 59
2.6 Costus (Juan Carrero and Enrique Naya) 1985 aining, Cristo Yacente 61
2.7 Still image of circus setting from Balada triste de trompeta 66
2.8 Still image from the opening credits from Balada triste de trompeta 67
3.1 Still image from the cartographic sequence from La semana del asesino 81
3.2 A persective from below: still image from La semana del asesino 81
4.1 Still image from the cartographic sequence Pepi, Luci, Bom 121
4.2 An ineio cene in Co aamen: ill image fom Pepi, Luci, Bom 125
4.3 Still image from Laberinto de pasiones, Riza eflecion i mlilied
in a sunglass display 133
4.4 An ineio cene in Sei aamen: ill image fom
Laberinto de pasiones 136
5.1 Sill image of Fahe Beiaa noe fom El día de la bestia 162
5.2 The Gate of Europe as it appears in El día de la bestia 171
6.1 Sill image fom Qenin Raelli Bricks 193
6.2 A filmic ome loeil: ill image fom La ciudad occulta 216
6.3 The illustion is revealed: Light passes over the frame in La ciudad occulta 216

vii
Abstract

This dissertation studies the material and cultural endurance of the Francisco Franco dictatorship
(1939-1975) in Madid ban landcae. Building from ocolonial heoi Ann Sole ok
on imperial durability, I develop dictatorial duress as a conceptual framework for understanding
the material presence, continuation, and resurgence of Francoism in Spain. While many scholars
of contemporary Spain have traced a return of the repressed in the cultural conflicts of democratic
Spain, my study shifts the conceptual vocabulary firmly into the material by identifying a persistent
dictatorial duress in the landscape of contemporary Madrid. I engage documentary and fiction
films from the period of 1959 to 2019 in order to analyze Madrid as a scene of cultural and political
change (or stagnation) as Spain transitioned from the Franco dictatorship to the current democracy.
I turn to G Debod heo y of psychogeography as the study of the effects of the physical
environment on behavior and emotion in order to consider the contours of cinematic space.
Understood through this lens, cinema becomes not just an aesthetic reflection of a particular
national moment, but a psychogeographic tool to probe the dense sites of Sain caial . The films
I analyze illustrate how Madid urban landscape both shapes and reflects cultural memory and
how the construction of space during the dictatorship contributed to the construction of ideology
in the past and the present.

1
Introduction
Cinematic Madrid from the Valley of the Fallen to the Torres KIO

On the morning of November 20, 1975, the Spanish state television network RTVE
switched the broadcast to black and white as Carlos Arias Navarro, the head of the Francoist
government, tearfully announced the death of Francisco Franco after nearly four decades of
dictatorship. As the common ehemim fo Fanco eenal and ineiable deah had i, he
hecho biológico, or biological fact, had occurred. The cadaver of the dictator was embalmed,
dressed, and taken the next day to Madid Palacio de Oriente for a two-day national vigil.
Meanwhile, on Noembe 22, Jan Calo I a oclaimed King of Sain, folloing Fanco
plan for succession. The next da, Fanco bod a inhumed in a somber ceremony at the
mausoleum of the Valley of the Fallen just outside Sain capital. In Fanco on words,
everything had been neatly tied up bien atado over the course of a few days and the Spanish
transition to democracy had begun to take effect.
In an effort to document this historical event, the Madrid-based photographer, Lea Levi,
turned her Hasselblad camera to the television. Over the course of those three days Levi captured
455 images of her television set, which she then placed in grids. Lei hoogah docmen he
live television coverage of these events as the news cameras tracked the proge of Fanco
itinerant body across the city. This live coverage was interspersed with informative programming
including hagiogahic accon of Fanco life and eo on he hio and fe of he
monarchy, which were meant to educate Spaniards about the transition in leadership as Juan Carlos
became king. Ye Lei hoogah do no iml eodce he official television broadcast;
instead, they intervene in its temporal consensus. That is, Lei camea effec a hal o he
eleiion aaenl eamle ogeion of moing image , impressing an instant onto

2
photographic negative. Her resulting photograph series presents a chronicle in television
fragments, drawing attention to the already-fragmented nature of the broadcast, to the lapsus in
this official narration of the events.
I begin ih Lei hoogah in ode o ndecoe he cenal ole of m edia in the
Spanish transition to democracy. More than capturing those first instants of the transition, of
chonicling and achiing he iniial nceain afe Fanco deah, Lei iece i a eamen
to the role that visual media played in shaping the memory of the Spanish transition. Yet the
photographs do not present memory a seamless historical narrative. Instead they recall Sain
transition as a fragmented series of afterimages; separated from the continuous flow of history, the
photos capture the instants or images of history ha flah , in Wale Benjamin em. 1 For
example, one striking image in the grid ho he aendee of Fanco fneal eeing ino he
dee oening hee Fanco coffin had j been loeed into its niche at the Valley of the
Fallen ala . The mourners bow their heads as they gaze into the dark niche; they appear as if
looking into a void. The symbolic content of this particular image is not to be lost. Indeed, the
dicao dden absence from political life presented a void, which both the right and left
struggled to fill after his death. Whereas the right had lost a leader, the left had lost a common
enemy. And while Sain future loomed uncertain, it seemed that the past would be sealed over
with stone. Fittingly, Lei ne image ho a mable lab liding oe Fanco gae .
Yet Francoism through its presences and its absences, its remainders and its
reinscriptions continues to shape the political and social conflicts of the present. As a case in
oin, Fanco moal emain became a flahoin in Sanih oliic in Jne 2018. Tha monh,
the newly-appointed Prime Minister, Pedro Sánche, had called fo Fanco emoal fom he

1 Benjamin, Illuminations, 255.

3
Valley of the Fallen, the colossal Francoist monument where the dictator had been buried over
forty years before. As I elaborate in the first chapter, the Valley of the Fallen was conceived by
the regime as a memorial site to establish the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) as the foundational
historic moment upon which to legitimize the dictatorship and to materialize its political ideology.
By he ime Snche annonced he lan fo Fanco ehmaion, Sain democratic
constitution had reached its fortieth anniversary. Yet Fanco figure continued to animate political
divisions in Spain and the proposed exhumation led to a drawn-out legal and political battle. Many
of those who supported the exhumation argued that such a spectacular monument to dictatorship
a an abeaion in Sain mae democac, hile opponents of the move argued that the past
was best left to rest. Although Fanco remains were eventually exhumed in October 2019, the
dicao emoal did little to resignify the monumen clea ideological meage, no did it erase
the connotations that the monument already had in civil society. Nevertheless, the exhumation
signaled the belated institutional reappraisal of a past that had been officially ignored.
Sain oliical ransition to democracy was facilitated through the 1977 Amnesty Law,
which protected the perpetrators of crimes under the dictatorship from legal prosecution. The law
provided the legal framework for an amnesty agreement in which the past would be quietly laid to
rest, ostensibly to avoid provoking another civil conflict. Yet the Pac of Obliion, a he la
has been dubbed by its critics,2 resulted in the continued official ilencing of Sain hioical
traumas of dictatorship and civil war. The historian Santos Juliá has objected to this assessment,
pointing to a range of historical, journalistic, and literary works that engaged the dictatorship

2 The historian Paloma Agila Fennde olaied he em, ac of obliion in he critique
of the amnesty agreement in Memoria y olvido de la guerra civil española. Similarly, Joan
Ramón Reina call he amne amneia b decee, and explores the semantic relation
between the two words, Resina, The Ghost in the Constitution, 173.

4
period in order to support his contention that the narratives of the civil war and dictatorship were
far from forgotten or silenced. A he ie, se habló y se ha seguido hablando sin pausas ni
interrupciones de ese pasado (eole alked, and eole hae conined alking iho ae o
interruption about that past).3 As I expand in Chapter One, Spain has indeed been engaged in
memory-work throughout the democratic period. However, the invocation of oblivion or amnesia
in relation to the Spanish transition does not imply that Spaniards have somehow forgotten the
past. Instead, it denounces the amnesia on the part of the state, referring to an institutionalized
forgetting in that the Amnesty Law foreclosed any possibility for official memory-work through
the framework of transitional justice. Absent the possibility for institutional justice, media forms
have provided an important public platform for working through the individual and collective
memories of the dictatorship in Spain.
The 2007 Law of Historical Memory provided a necessary reparative for this institutional
silence by recognizing the victims of the dictatorship and developing compensation policies for
victims and their families. However, he la reach was ultimately inadequate in that it did not
hold the perpetrators accountable for their crimes. Indeed, the Spanish Supreme Court has
continued to block the investigation of crimes committed under the dictatorship, thereby obscuring
the egime repressive apparatus. Unlike other post-conflict societies such as Germany, South
Africa, or Argentina, Spain had no truth commissions or transitional justice initiatives. In this
sense, Sain laws have perpetuated what postcolonial theorist Ann Laura Stoler might call a
state-adminieed oliic of di egad, o a illfl fogeing in hich ahoiaian mode of
domination are effaced.4

3 Jli Da, Echa al Olido, 112.
4 Sole, Se Toad an Ecolog of Di -Regad.

5
The 1977 Amnesty Law was indicative of the deep institutional ties to Francoism that
carried over from the dictatorship to the democracy, ensuring that hee a no oo and banch
renovation of the political class. 5 For while the country adopted a modern constitution in 1978,
legalized political parties, and instituted free elections, there was little bureaucratic reform.
Francoist government functionaries kept their positions, as did the police force, the army, and the
judiciary. Even the king was appointed by Franco. Perha a a commena on he king
appointment, Levi placed a photograph from Juan Carlos I oclamaion ceemon upside down
in her photo grid [Fig 1.1]. The photograph, which features a gilded crown on a red velvet cushion,
is turned on its head as if to invert the symbolic power of the coronation. The position of the photo
seems to question the legitimacy of this new ruler, who was hand selected by Franco himself.
Nevertheless, the new king soon legitimized his role as head of state by facilitating the con
democratic constitution, which established Spain as a parliamentary monarchy.

Fig. 1.1: One of Lea Lei hoo grids containing photographs of the televised
proclamation ceremony for King Juan Carlos I. The photograph of the crown is placed
upside down.

5 Graham, The War and Its Shadow, 129.

6
The recent debate oe Fanco monumental tomb at the Valley of the Fallen reflects larger
questions regarding the enduring remnants of Francoism and the persistent cultural and
institutional legacy of the Franco dictatorship in Spain. Siding with those who advocated for the
ehmaion of Fanco emain, he a nthropologist Francisco Ferrándiz has argued that the Valley
of the Fallen is an anachronism.6 However, to cast the monumental site as out-of-time or out-of-
place is to suggest that Francoism no longer has any hold in the present. This dissertation takes the
cae of Fanco contentious tomb as its point of departure for a larger analysis of the material
permanence of Francoist forms in Spain and the way in which these forms continue to reemerge
in new contexts. In particular, I focus on the city of Madrid to illustrate ho he dicaohi
legacy is not fixed in the past, but mobile, as it reinscribes itself into the landscape of the
democratic capital. Bilding fom Sole postcolonial framework for understanding the presence,
return, resurgence, and continuation of modes of imperial dominance in the present, I call
Fancoim persistent and renewed forms dictatorial duress.
In what follows, I trace the ways in which dictatorial duress exerts its force in Madrid. As
Sain caial, he ci offe a nie oiion fom hich o conide he con comle
moden ocial and oliical hio. Madid i Sain cene of goenmen and commece, b
the city has also played an important role as a center of cultural production and as a site of political
protest and social change. I ead he ci a a clal e folloing Heni Lefebe claim ha
he ci i an oee, cloe o a ok of a han o a imle maeial odc. 7 In this sense, I
understand the city both as a set of material structures and relations and as a set of cultural objects
through which these structures are represented and mediated. The text of the city is woven through

6 Fendi, Gea in fin, 485.
7 Lefebe, The Secifici of he Ci, 129.

7
the poetry and ideology of landmarks and monuments, boulevards and back alleys. But the city
also exists as an image of itself; it produces a cultural archive of songs and stories, films and
photographs. How then to read this text? How can we read a city?
Although a map of a city can read a map at a standstill, a city as a complex set of relations
and mediations can only be read by moving through it. To this end, moving images allow us to
move through Madrid, to travel back and foh beeen he ci cene and i eihe, between
its history and its present, between and across its literal and figurative borders: to interrogate the
ci flashy neighborhoods and monumental architecture, but also to peer into its dark corners and
neglected slums. In this journey, I explore the following questions: How does ideology become
material and in what ways does it condition the tense conflicts of the present? How has the city
transformed from dictatorship to democracy? What Francoist structures remain and reemerge in
Madid landcae? And, ho doe hi ban landcae condiion bjecie eeience, and
how do subjects in turn condition the landscape?
An Enduring Legacy
In their study written nearly 20 years ago, Fernando Jáuregui and Manuel Ángel Menéndez
illustrated how Sain landcae eain ed many aspects of the past. These material remains, they
suggested, implied the existence of a Francoist substratum in the conscious of Spaniards.8 As an
example, Jáuregui and Menéndez drew attention to the use of words such as libeaion o
ico to refer to the 1936 military uprising on the state radio of the democratic era, Radio
Nacional de España. Today, one could question the recent Supreme Court decision that described
Franco as Sain head of state from 1936 to 1975. The statement was surprising because it failed

8 Jáuregui and Menéndez, Lo que nos queda de Franco, 18 20.

8
to mention that during the first years of this period, from 1936 to 1939, the Spanih goenmen
legitimate head of state was in fact Prime Minister Manuel Azaña of the Second Republic. 9
Moreover, recent actions on the part of the state, such as the violent defense of centrism or
overzealous restrictions on freedom of expression also call to mind the rhetoric and practices of
the regime.10
Other scholars, too, have written on the legacy of the dictatorship in Sain democratic
period from a cultural studies perspective. In various ways, their theoretical frameworks suggest
that far from constituting a break with the past whereby the country would put the dictatorship to
rest, the so-called Pact of Oblivion instead ensured a certain continuity into the present. In the 2005
edited collection, Traces of Contamination, Eloy Merino and H. Rosi Song write of this legacy in
terms of contamination and illustrate how these traces are material, structural, and affective. The
authors use this conce a a a o eloe he inenal connecion beeen he coneci e
periods of extreme ideology and programmatic democracy and how one survives into the other in
varying degrees. 11 However, the metaphor of contamination implies that the Franco dictatorship
exists as a foreign body or is somehow external, or other, to Spain democac. While he aho
are correct to identify the relation in terms of a certain copresence, Francoism must be understood
as constitutive of the democracy as making up its very DNA not external to it.
Cristina Moreiras Menor also uses a bodily metaphor to argue that the dictatorship and the
subsequent transition period left a mark on Spanish society, as she elaborates through her concept

9 See Blanco, Paicia R. El jefe de Eado el 1 de ocbe de 1936: Fanco o Aaa? El País,
6 June 2019.
10 Fo eamle, he ae iolen eion of he 2017 Caalonian indeendence efeendm
through the mobilization of the Civil Guard and National Police; or the 2015 Ley Mordaza, which
limied ciil libeie and feedom of eeion. See Sheean, Jaceline. A (Ne) Sece
Han Eoe, 471 473.
11 Meino and Song, Tacing he Pa: An Inodcion, 16.

9
of cultura herida o onded cle. Moeia Menor identifies a fundamental antagonism
beeen he foce ha ced Sain aniion: he concion of a ne clal oliic
baed on fogeing o eaing he a and he eigino ace of Sain naional reidentification
as a global and democratic society. No longer part of he Fanco egime igid naional and ocial
construction, the Spanish subject (both as an individual and a collective subjectivity) is instead
constructed through new forms of possession and commodification within the framework of
postmodernism and global capitalism. In the novels and films of the transition period which turned
away from the past, Francoism largely figures not as a presence, but as an absence. In this sense,
the cultural politics of the transition period resulted in a psychological wound and a collectively
wounded culture unable to come to terms with its present after being violently distanced from
its past.12
Using a psychoanalytic framework, Teresa Vilarós has theorized on the absence, or lack
(in the Lacanian sense), of the figure of Franco. In Vila ie, ding he fo -decades of
dictatorship, Sain political and social body developed an addiction to the vital flow provided
by Franco. This addiction produced psychological effects; as Vilarós argues that after his death,
Franco became the psychoanalytic objet-a, the object which is lost beyond the realm of the
symbolic and which the subject continually desires to recover. The consequences of this lack, she
argues, can be read in line with the affective, psychological, and somatic symptoms of withdrawal
(mono). In this convincing theorization, the dictatorship (with Franco as its primary figure) is
presented as the constitutive lack for Spanish political subjectivity during the democratic period.13

12 Moreiras Menor, Cultura herida, 15-26.
13 Vilarós, El mono del desencanto.

10
While Vila study only deals with the transition period,14 her psychoanalytic understanding of
withdrawal provides an explanation for the repeated conjurings of both Franco and Francoism in
the symbolic order of the democracy. Indeed, deie Fancoim oed conignmen o
oblivion with the Pact of Amnesty, the dictatorship continued to return, ghost-like, in the
democratic period.
Hauntology, Jacques Deida hiloohical caego ry for the uncertain ontology of
spectral being, also engages with these traces and returns. Deida decibe he ece a hi
non-object, this non-present present, this being-hee of an aben deaed one. 15 For Derrida,
the figure of the specter returns to disrupt the present. It is something that is no longer present, but
whose trace remains and refuses to be altogether absent, thereby suggesting a disarticulated
temporality, a time out of joint. Hauntology has been fittingly applied and expanded upon by those
ho d he a Sain violent traumatic past returns in the present.16 Ghosts stage a return
that may represent an individual traumatic experience or a collective historical trauma.
Pchological ama el in he bjec inabili o ccefll naae a memo . Yet
trauma nevertheless leaves an indelible trace or impression upon the subconscious and it inevitably
returns, ghost-like, surfacing as a compulsive repetition. Julián Gutiérrez-Albilla has shown that it
is necessary to engage the specters or traces of past trauma because, as psychoanalytic theory

14 There is no consensus among cultural historians on the periodization for the transition to
democracy. Vilarós demarcates the period as beginning in 1973 with the assassination of
Fanco then head of government, Li Caeo Blanco, and ending in 1993 ih Sain en
ino he Eoean Union hogh he ea of Maaich, hich ineed Sain ino he ne
Eoean conellaion ( la nueva constelación europea) Vilarós, 1-2.
15 Derrida, Specters of Marx, 6.
16 In addition to the works mentioned here, see also Alberto Medina Exorcismos de la memoria
and Issue 15.3 of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies edited by Steven Marsh and devoted to
film and spectrality.

11
affirms, the nconciol deemine o een and o fe. 17 To engage with such
specters is a political task.
Indeed, the figure of the ghost poses an ethico-political question, or what sociologist Avery
Godon call a omehing o be done. 18 To hi end, he olemic oiced b Jo Labani, Wha
does a society in particular, Spanish society of the Transition and since do with its history; that
i ha doe i do ih i gho of he a?, 19 has animated academic discourse on Spain for at
least the past two decades. Gho aea in miad fom in Sain clal naaie films,
television, novels, painting, and photography are populated with a diverse array of specters but
the figure of the ghost also stands in for the millions of victims who died and disappeared during
the civil war and the dictatorship. These ghosts, both real and fictional, stage a return of the past.
Importantly for Labanyi, the figure of the ghost eschews the popular narrative of the transition as
a e, in hich Fanco deah eeene d the political, historical, and ideological ending of
the dictatorship and the democracy represented a new beginning. 20 Ghosts allow or even
demand a return to history by manifesting the past in the present. Instead of promoting what
Labanyi has called an aeheic of e which would narrativize the past as a coherent whole
in order to overcome it and to consign it once and for all to history, he gho aeheic of
haning manifests the affective charge of the past, alerting us to the ways in which it still
intervenes in the present.21

17 Gutiérrez-Albilla, Aesthetics, Ethics and Trauma in the Cinema of Pedro Almódovar, 8 9.
18 Gordon, Ghostly Matters, 194.
19 Labani, Hio and Hanolog; o, Wha Doe One Do ih he Gho of he Pa? 65.
20 Labani, Memo and Modeni in Democaic Sain, 109.
21 Labanyi, 108.

12
As Gordon suggests, he aeaance of ece o gho i one a e ae noified
ha ha been concealed i e mch alie and een . 22 The metaphor of the ghost, or
revenant, is enormously helpful for articulating the ways in which the past is unsettled into the
present. Despite often being highly visible, for example at the Valley of the Fallen, the durability
of the regime is not always self-evident or easily apprehended. Hauntology provides a language
for how Francoism impinges upon and becomes entangled with the present. However, instead of
simply returning to expose the failures of the past in the present (the failure to officially recognize
the crimes of the past, for example), the ghost opens history to infuse both the past and the future
with potential. The ghost ethico-political demand, argues Derrida, can be understood as a sort of
ecal meianim . That is, while the specter raises questions about how to respond to the past,
it also raises the question of the future itself, the question of a response, of a promise and a
eonibili fo omoo. 23 In he cone of Sain memo conflic, o ignoe hi ghol
demand is not just to avoid accounting for the past crimes of the dictatorship, but to avoid the
responsibility for a more democratic future.
In Spain, the ghostly and the material have merged in an unsettling way. Bringing together
specters and materiality quite literally, the Association for Recuperation of Historical Memory, a
Spanish NGO, has organized the excavations of more than 150 mass graves over the last two
decades, resulting in the exhumation of more than 1,400 victims of Francoist repression. As
Patricia Keller observes, the victims of the war had only been shadows, disappeared bodies, or
pale memories; the process of exhuming them has effectively turned their ghostly status into a
material reality. 24 However, as illustrated by the recent exhumation of Fanco bod , ghosts are

22 Gordon, Ghostly Matters, xvii.
23 Derrida, Archive Fever, 36.
24 Keller, 17.

13
not reducible to material remains, their demands cannot be unearthed and reburied with the bones
from which they may issue. To this end, Keller expands the aesthetics of haunting into an
ineeaie fameok b daing aenion o he ece diaiclaed iaion , in which
ghosts occupy a space between temporalities and between visibility and invisibility. 25 In other
words, the ghostly trace can be seen as a signal of a loss or erasure from time and space, a
eceible indeing of he ace. 26 This aesthetic allows for an exploration of what Keller calls
ghostly landscapes, the visual forms that substantiate or materialize the ghostly trace. As Keller
noe, haning ha o do ih location, both in the sense of geographical place and in the
sense of social, clal, and ial ace. 27
Ghosts do not haunt just any place, any location. Instead, certain locations produce ghosts.
Fo Godon, he gho, can lead o ha dene ie hee hio and bjecii make ocial
life. 28 Haunting, as an uncertain presence, can only be perceived as an unsettling trace it is
sensed, as Gordon (borrowing from Raymond Williams) argues, by da [ing] affeciel
into a structure of feeling or a reality we come to experience. 29 Ghosts do not register within given
modes of scientific observation or fit within rationalist epistemology, but they make our hairs stand
on end. They are felt as an uncanny presence. Despite their uncertain register, the ghost always
signals the presence of something real, something material. This study proposes to follow the
ghost, to explore these haned dense sites hee Francoism endures.
Yet ghosts are flighty, temporally unstable, and ontologically uncertain. Too much
attention to what ghosts are or what ghosts do may obscure the real and material qualities of the

25 Keller, 9.
26 Keller, 11.
27 Keller, Ghostly Landscapes, 11.
28 Gordon, Ghostly Matters, 8.
29 Gordon, 8.

14
egime dabili and emanence . Thus, I am interested in where ghosts lead. I take as my point
of deae he gho doble nae: i dialecic of lo and en, eence and abence,
invisibility and visibility. While a great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to the loss, to that
which was left behind or forgotten, to that which was hidden, I propose to examine the ways that
Francoism has remained, returned, and even flourished in plain sight. This study, in short, shifts
these ghostly vocabularies firmly into the material, as I posit the existence of a persistent dictatorial
duress in the Spanish state. I turn to the urban landscape to analyze how the structures of the city
materialize forms of memory and ideology and exert force on the everyday.
In her critique of the scholarship on colonialism, Stoler identifies a cholal omance
ih ace, hich he age ik endeing colonial emnan a ale filigee, be nign overlays
with barely detectable presence rather than deep pressure points of generative possibilities or
violent and violating absences. 30 Instead, Stoler proposes duress as a conceptual lens for
rethinking the implications of the past, and the way in which modes of imperial dominance
continue, return, and are renewed in the present. Like hanolog, Sole concept has temporal,
spatial, and affective connotations. In simple terms, duress refers to the exertion of force or
violence upon an individual or entity, to an act of compulsion or constraint. To be under duress
has an affective charge: a person subjected to such coercive violence experiences emotional and
psychological stress and their statements or actions are thus deemed inadmissible as evidence. But
the term shares its etymology with durability and duration, coming from the Latin durus, which
means hard. A cursory review of the terms Stoler includes with her definition illustrate this link:

30 Stoler, Duress, 5.

15
hadne, oghne, iolence, eei; hadine of endance, eiance, ec . but also o la,
continue, persist, extend. 31
Adoing he em Sole ocabla, I am ineeed in reading for dictatorial duress. In
the case of this study, dictatorial duress refers to the fact that the Valley of the Fallen continues to
be the largest and most impressive monument to the Spanish civil war; and that this site, which
monumentalizes the repressive military regime, continues to be managed by the democratic state
as a place of worship and a tourist attraction a mere 50 kilometers from its capital. Dictatorial
duress accounts for the fact that contemporary members of the Falange (the official political party
of the dictatorship) continue to march on the Valley of the Fallen every 20th of November to honor
and commemorate Francisco Franco and he egime ma and ideologe José Antonio Primo
de Rivera. However, endurance is not always mimetic. Duress does not imply simple repetition.
Following Michel Foucault, Stoler caion again oaliing egime and anali and age
for an analytical perspective that recognizes that technologies of domination exist and persist in
different scales, in different places, in different forms.32
Dictatorial duress, in this case, also refers to the way in which new fascist-like political
parties have extended and adapted Francoist ideological tenets and entwined themselves with the
sites and symbols previously utilized by the regime. For example, how he leade of Sain
emerging far-right party, Vox Santiago Abascal, chose the sanctuary of Covadonga to inaugurate
hi oliical camaign in Sain nohen egion, caialiing on he mbolim of he ie b
giving a press conference in front of the statue of Don Pelayo, the heo of Sain econe .33
Yet while Vo cleal cliae he mbol of Fancoi Naional Caholicim, he a doen

31 Stoler, 6, my emphasis.
32 Stoler, 30.
33 See Vo: Abacal, ai Ane Don Pelao. La Vangadia, 12 A. 2019 .

16
advocate for a return to the Francoist state either. That is, Vo noalgic dicoe i no
exclusively Francoist, but neither is it entirely new. In a configuration that Ana Fernández-Cebrián
and Victor Pueyo Zoco call omofacimo, the party seizes upon the concepts and affects that were already present in Spanish politics to form an ambiguous postmodern amalgam of
neoliberalism and fascism. 34 The recent rise of the party illustrates how Spain was not an
exception, lacking a far right as a result of the trauma of authoritarianism, as was often assumed.
In this sense, Vox is not an aberrant development, but a sign of the deep features of Francoist
influence in the democracy. Dictatorial duress, therefore, is the condition of possibility for the
increasing normalization of such fascistic tendencies in Spain.
A ie, fo Sole, i no ha i lef, b ha eo le are left with: what remains that
blocks livelihoods and health; the aftershocks of imperial assault; the social afterlife of degraded
infrastructures; distressed sensibilities; and the things by which one is assailed and assaulted by
their very presence. 35 Man of Fancoim emainde conine o mak Madid landscape in
readily identifiable ways: the large public infrastructure projects undertaken by the regime in its
efforts of modernization; or the class-segregated housing projects built by the Ministry of Housing
(analyzed in Chapter Two), their facades still adorned with the faded signs of the regime in the
form of the falangnist yoke and arrow crest. The tendencies of the regime survive and exert their
force in less apparent ways too. Helen Graham argues that many attitudes from the regime remain
in he democac, inclding oad he ae a a em of aonage and acce o a spoils
em. 36 In Sain democracy, such attitudes can be identified in the corruption scandals
involving real estate developers and members of the political class. These effects are not the result

34 Fernández-Cebin and Peo Zoco, La o de Vo o a ena el omofacimo.
35 Stoler, Duress, 348.
36 Graham, The War and Its Shadow, 129.

17
of Francoist policies, but in Sole em a ial reinscriptions, modified displacements, and
amlified eceaion. 37 Thus without implying too smooth of a history, too seamless, I sketch
out the duration, continuity, and extension of fascistic tendencies in Madrid. In short, I tell the
ghost stor of Fancoim. A Godon age, []o ie gho oie imlie ha gho ae eal,
that is to say, that they produce material effects. 38 These material effects, this dictatorial duress,
i embedded in he dene ie of Madid ban landcae.
B inoking de I don mean o iml lif Sole conce and al i in a ne
context or a different landscape. Instead, I want to refigure duress, to see how it might speak to a
reassessment of a particular history that has often been considered exceptional. For Stoler, the
concept of duress is linked to empire. I would like to pull apart or unlink the two concepts, to
expand duress as a conceptual lens for understanding the effects of other modes of domination.
But that is not to say that the dictatorship did not have historical roots in empire. Indeed, Francoism
a bon o of Sain colonial incion in Noh Afica hee Fanco had eed a a geneal
during the Rif War (1911-1927). As Susan Martin-Márquez ho, he Fanco egime ded off
the racialized colonial Africanist discourses of the previous two centuries.39 These served not only
to legitimize the early dicaohi colonial aiaion on he Afican coninen, b alo eed
as a discursive jificaion fo he dominaion and o eliminaion of he eninla inenal
foeign hea: he ed enem. Indeed, as Graham and Richards have argued, Fanco ciil a
and post war strategies to eliminate or assimilate political and regional differences could be
understood as an internal colonization of the metropolis.40 Still, to apply postcolonial theory, a

37 Stoler, Duress, 27.
38 Gordon, Ghostly Matters, 17.
39 Martin-Márquez, Disorientations, 223.
40 Richards, A Time of Silence, 193; Graham, The War and Its Shadow, 116.

18
theory for the periphery, to a metropolitan context is perhaps counterintuitive, as the operations of
theory usually travel in the opposite direction. This study seeks to complicate these rigid
geographic and ideological divisions and to recognize the logics of domination that tightly bind
the two. In doing so, I hope to expand the conceptual terrain that duress may occupy, a terrain
which will require further exploration beyond the present study.

Psychogeography and the Cinematic Landscape
In this dissertation, I have tried to synthesize the language of critical geography for apprehending
space with the critical frames of poststructuralism in order to understand the way in which material
space produces ideological, political, and affective resonances that align with dictatorial duress.
Geographers and sociologists have long made a distinction between Euclidean space, defined as
theoretical and geomeical ace, and anhoological lace, defined a lace of ideni , of
relations, and of hio. 41 Place, in other words, is location that is conditioned or ordered by
human relations. The concept of landscape takes this idea one step further by linking the spatial,
social, and representational aliie of a lace. A John Wlie age, landcae i boh he
phenomenon itself and o eceion of i ak[ing] hae ihin he ealm of hman
eceion and imaginaion. 42 That is, landscape is place as it is perceived by the human senses
and conceived by the human mind. A Wlie obee, o ialie a ace a landcae i o e
i a a diance. 43 He identifies a tension in cultural geography between proximity and distance,
observer and observed, ways of seeing and interacting. Corey Byrnes reminds us that landscape
is more than a symbolic mode or a mirror of the natural world; it is also a cultural practice that

41 Augé, Non-Places, 43.
42 Wylie, Landscape, 7.
43 Wylie, Landscape, 4.

19
actively changes the physical world landscape is also a verb. 44 Indeed, landscape visualization
and representation have long been understood as ways of seeing the world that are tied up with
he eacioni and eanioni ideologie of caialim and imeial im. 45 The question
becomes then, how to visualize these ideological effects without reproducing them?
Psychogeography examines how we live in and experience landscape in a way that
reconciles the distanced gaze of cartography. In he 1955 ea, Inodcion o a Ciie of
Uban Geogah, the Situationist, Guy Debord, coined the term chogeogah, a he d
of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously
organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals. 46 For Debord, psychogeography
eened a maeiali eecie in ha i considered the ways in which life and thought were
conditioned by objective nature. 47 Debod admi ha he conce i chamingl age and
resists any urge to further circumscribe his definition, instead suggesting a potential methodology
for the new field of study. 48 He i aiclal ineeed in chogeogah oenial o
reimagine the practice of mapmaking. Drawing from surrealist strategies such as automatism and
objective chance, Debord proposes that psychogeography allows for a radical rethinking of
caogah ha old ee, if no andomne, oal insubordination to habitual
influences. 49 Situationist or psychogeographic mapping recognized that modern capitalist space
a fll of conadicion, hidden onl b a hom ogenizing ideology. 50 Psychogeographic praxis
then produces maps that reject the totalizing and hierarchical practices of landscape visualization,

44 Byrnes, Fixing Landscape, 15.
45 Byrnes, 16.
46 Debod, Inodcion o a Ciie of Uban Geogah, 8.
47 Debord, 8.
48 Debord, 8.
49 Debord, 11.
50 McDonogh, Siaioni Sace, 46.

20
as the Situationists understood he ci no a an odel geome, b a a oali of eno
and emoional effec. 51
Psychogeography is a science of fragments, of dreaming, of wandering, and of errancy. It
recognizes the city as an invention, and reinvents it by walking through it. Indeed, as a form of
psychogeographic praxis, Debord would later develop the drift, or dérive. Unlike the calculated
impulses of cartographic control, the dérive is nonteleological, not a means to a particular end.
Instead, it is driven by abandon, in which the practitioners let themselves be drawn by the
attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. 52 While dérive is playful, it is also,
imoanl a ciical acice. A Debod ie, fom he die oin of ie ciie hae
psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly
dicoage en ino o ei fom ceain one. 53 The dérive is a politicized mode of walking,
for it identifies he ci chogeogahical cono, but also imagines alternative routes.
As a form of counterhegemonic movement, dérive is also linked to the figure of Michel de
Ceea walker, Benjamin flâneur, and Jo Mo practice of cruising, connections
explored in the chapters of this dissertation. While cruising is both a critical and a utopic practice
that imagines a better future, the flâneur is a dilletante who looks toward the past. Meanwhile, the
walker is a more present-oiened ieaion, ha i ciical of he ci coic egime and eek o
refigure these through walking as a poetic practice. Despite their differences, I argue that these
practices all belong within a genealogy of dérive. Each practice is undergirded by a web of chance,
objective observation, desire, and phantasy. All are overlapping methods to experience the city in
a fragmented, non-totalizing way.

51 Wark, The Beach beneath the Street, 21; 20.
52 Debod, Theo of he Die, 62.
53 Debord, 62.

21
These ways of moving through the city provide a cursory methodology for reading the
constellations of dictatorial duress, for traveling through the dense and fragmented sites of
Francoism, both its ruins, but also its zones of confluence and regeneration. Just as there are many
ways in which duress takes form, there are many ways to read it. The development of Madrid in
the democratic period has taken forms that do not necessarily fit within recognizable fascist
formations or clear Francoist aesthetic practices. The ability to recognize dictatorial duress and the
coniniie of oe i enail, ma hae a mch o do ih ha he conneciiie beeen
een and a ae eeced o look like ho an gible or intangible those effects are expected
o be. 54 Psychogeography is then a poetic method to identify the expected and unexpected
continuities. It is, in short, antifascist mapmaking that can account for structures and affects; it is
not tied to a temporal present, but allows for a movement across time and across history; and it
allows us to draw both lines of connection and constellation and lines of flight.
Another form of movement that of moving image is also inherently psychogeographic.
Cinematic movement is facilitated through camera movement (the tracking shots, pans, zooms,
etc.) and editing (continuity, montage, jump cuts, etc.). These techniques are a way of registering
the urban experience, a way of performing a sensual and visual mapping. Film creates a non-
sequential map of the city as experienced, much like the urban drift of the Situationists. Indeed,
the psychogeographic maps produced by the Situationist Ralph Rumney, the only member of the
London Psychogeographical Committee, read very much like a cinematic story board. As Giuliana
Bruno observes, Rmne ma i an aem o ende o ban dif in filmic iing, ceaing,
as it were, a shot-by-shot analysis of filmic montage. 55 These similarities should not be surprising.

54 Stoler, Duress, 6.
55 Bruno, Atlas of Emotion, 265.

22
Films construct visual and sonic landscapes. Whether shot on location or recreated on a
soundstage, films create an affective or even psychic geography. As Bruno suggests, the very
language of cinema is a language of movement and affect, motion and emotion, effecting a
psychogeograpical cinematics. Both narratively and phenomenally, the film is a form of urban
journey, a mode of experiencing the very fabric of the city. Folloing Bno, I conide film a a
ehicle fo clal maing ha allo acce o he hifing geogah of inimae ace . 56
A Bno ha aged, he machine of modeni ha fabicaed he ci i alo he fabic
of film. 57 Indeed, two of the central technologies of modernity, the city and cinema, developed
together. This fact is reflected in the cycle of the city symphony, which arose in early cinema and
gained traction especially during the 1920s and 30s. Similarly, Sergei Eisenstein once claimed that
film ndobed anceo a achiece .58 This is because, film, like architecture is a visual
text that allows access to multidimensionality and movement. That is, both media allow for
multiple perspectives, and present sites for traversal. Film develops a montage that allows the
viewer to travel through space in Bno em, he oe i a once a oage . 59 Yet
cinema eiaeic nae alo takes the voyeur into the unknown, beyond human vision.
Techniques like extreme zooms, panning surveys, rapid travelling shots, jump cuts, and
imaginative special effects allow access to a world we cannot see. According to Dziga Vertov, the
oing and mechanical kino ee of he camea goe beond iml elicaing he abiliie of
the human eye. 60 As I explore in the final chapter, film allows for a deeper penetration into the
visible world, for a fuller exploration of visual phenomenon. Thus I posit cinema as a

56 Bruno, 269.
57 Bruno, 21.
58 Eienein and Boi, Monage and Achiece, 117.
59 Bruno, Atlas of Emotion, 6.
60 Vertov, Kino-eye, 67.

23
psychogeographic tool as a mechanism for mapping 20th and 21st-century Madrid that is attuned
not just to the material space of the city, but to its territories of affect, ideology, and politics. In
this psychogeographic journey through the landscape of Madrid, I center my analysis upon case
studies of documentary and fiction films by filmmakers with distinct intellectual and aesthetic
projects including Álex de la Iglesia, Eloy de la Iglesia, Pedro Almodóvar, Víctor Moreno, and
Quentin Ravelli. While I primarily focus on the moving image, throughout this dissertation I also
ae he cinemaic flo o ead ill photographs, paintings, and monuments that image
dictatorial duress in exceptional ways.
Mapping a Route
The Franco regime came in o oe on i defea of he Sanih Reblic a he end of Sain
civil war in 1939. The regime was formed through an alliance between distinct politically
conservative factions including traditional landowners, the church, monarchists, industrialists, and
the fascist Falange party, which would become the official political party of the regime. This was
an nea alliance, fo, a Labani noe, he fi hee go had a eed inee in clinging
o he a while the indiali and he faci ee adocae of echnological
modeniaion (albei hogh oaliaian mean). 61 Thus, the egime ideolog conain ed both
anti-moden and echnologicall ogeie elemen. Fo one, i ealed Sain eal moden
age of empire and looked back to this era for moral and aesthetic referents. At the same time, the
regime engaged in an aggressive project of economic modernization, particularly from the period
of the dictatorship abiliaion lan deied b he O us Dei echnoca ho oened Sain
economy to foreign investment. The introduction of this plan in 1959 brought about the apertura

61 Labani, Memo and Modeni in Democaic Sain, 92.

24
(opening) period, in which Spain would shift from an autarkic economy to integrate itself into
global capitalism. This initiated Sain o -called economic miacle , a eiod in hich Sain
economy would grow at one of the fastest rates in the world and which would last through the
transition and into the mid-1980s.
Dictatorial Duress centers its analysis on cinematic representations of Madrid beginning
with the newsreel footage from the inauguration of the Valley of the Fallen in 1959 and ending
with La ciudad oculta, Vco Moeno eloaion of he ci hidden echnological
infrastructure in 2019. Moving back and forth between the periphery and the city center, I analyze
both nonfiction and fiction films from this sixty-year period in order to gain insight into how the
con Fancoi a ei and ende in Madid post-Transition landscape. 62 The
historical contextualization of my study offers a critical perspective on both the Franco regime and
Sain cen democracy. Other monographic studies that deal explicitly with cinema and
Francoism have focused on more concentrated periods.63 This dissertation adopts a longer view in
order o ace he a ha he Fanco dicaohi a able o hae i on ecod and project
itself far into the future. 64 The production of space was an important political tool for the
dicaohi mean o mbolie he egime oe. M anale ho ho he faci
monumentalism of the Franco period is reinscribed into the neoliberal developments of post-
Transition Madrid and ho he egime echnie of dominaion ae eneed in he ace of
the democracy. In this sense, my project contributes a cultural studies perspective to the economic

62 Kelle afoemenioned d, Ghostly Landscapes, examines a similarly expansive time
eiod, b i no limied o film. Hoee hile Kelle eek o deelo a ne ciical langage
fo he oblemaic of ialiing lo di ng this period, I seek to focus on the geographies of
endurance, Ghostly Landscapes, 23.
63 Examples include Steven Marsh's Popular Spanish Film under Franco (2005) or Sally
Faulkner's A Cinema of Contradiction (2006).
64 Graham, The War and Its Shadow, 126.

25
history detailed by Emmanuel Rodríguez and Isidro López,65 which established the real estate
make and he concion eco a he moo fo Sain 20 th-century economic progress during
the dictatorship and the democratic periods.
The chapters of the dissertation contain case studies arranged in lose chronological order,
but each chapter also reaches outside the period of the film or films it studies. The organization of
the project could perhaps best be understood through Nigel Thif concept of site a an acie
and always incomplete incarnation of events, an actualization of times and spaces that uses the
flcaing condiion o aemble ielf. 66 Sites are not simply locations on maps, but formed as
a result of intersecting social and historical flows. In the chapters that follow, I piece together a
constellation of sites, from recognizable commercial or touristic sites such as the Valley of the
Fallen, the Edificio España, or the Castellana district, to the more intimate geographies of the
neighborhoods and homes of working class and bourgeois madrileños. In doing so, I attend to the
scaling, sedimentations, and co-emoaliie of de and o he ecific ie hee [hee] ae
headed hogh one anohe. 67
The fi chae, Mapping Memory: El Valle de los Caídos and its Afterimages, begins
at the very border of the Community of Madrid with the Valley of the Fallen, construction of which
officiall began in 1940. The chae fi oide a deailed hio fo Madid oa
reconstruction and lays the groundwork for understanding the regime ban lanning initiatives.
Bilding fom Piee Noa ok on places of memory and Deida theoretical formulation of
the archive, the chapter asks how the construction of space becomes the construction of history
and interrogates the ties between the built landscape, media, ideology, and historical memory. Yet

65 López Hernández and Rodríguez, Fin de ciclo, 2010.
66 Thrift, Non-Representational Theory, 12.
67 Stoler, Duress, 30.

26
the monument and the dictatorial memory it instantiates does not exist in one year or in one
lace. I a no officiall comleed nil 1959, and one cold een age ha Fanco bi al at
the altar of the basilica in 1975 constituted the true completion of the monument, only to be undone
by his exhumation last year. To accon fo he monmen shifting material effects, I perform a
comparative analysis, considering afterimages from the period of the dictatorship, the early
democracy, and the present day. I read Francoist newsreels (NO-DOs) alongside Co Valle de
los Caídos painting series (1981-1986), and Ále de la Igleia 2010 dak comed film, Balada
triste de trompeta (The Last Circus). These and other afterimages, I argue, work against the fixed
memo of he monmen hile alo illaing he monmen conined effec in he een.
These media illustrate that the Valley of the Fallen is not an inert remainder of Francoism, but an
archival site which continues to generate symbolic and material force.
The econd chae, Mapping the Economic Miracle: Peripheral Cruising through Eloy
de la Igleia La semana del asesino moe o eamine Madid ban eriphery both through
hioie of ban lanning and Elo de la Igleia 1973 film La semana del asesino (The Cannibal
Man). The chae begin ih a conined hio of Madid ban deelomen ding he lae -
Francoist period. From Chapter One an alysis of the monumental re-construction of Madrid,
Chapter Two examines the implicit and explicit ideological and biopolitical motivations for the
construction of low-income housing developments. The study shifts in location to the social
hoing deelomen in he ci eihe , as way of acknowledging that the majority of the
dicaohi ban deelomen iniiaie sought to tackle infrastructural or social problems, as
triumphalist projects gave way to zoning initiatives and the construction of public housing. But
these projects still impose a particular memory and ideology. I argue that La semana del asesino
maps the lived space of the periphery in Francoist Madrid both as a set of boundaries and as a set

27
of intersections and draws attention to the alienation generated by peripheral urban development
and social marginalization. Infomed b Michel de Cea heoie of ban acice, I oiion
the rhetoric of urban planning against the visual language of the film and the use of techniques
such as montage, eye-line, and high and low angle shots. In presenting a mobile cinematics of
homoerotic desire, I argue that de la Igleia film deelo a fom of cinemaic ciing and
imagines a different perspective than the panopticism of city planning.
The hid chae, Mapping La Movida: Movement and Politics in the Early Films of
Pedro Almodóvar, moves to examine the era of the transition and the new democracy while
continuing to develop the trope of movement. The chapter provides a critical reading of the post-
dictatorship cultural effervescence known as la movida madrileña, interrogating how the
oedl aoliical moemen came o eiomie clal change. I age ha Almoda fi
two films, Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom, and Other Girls Like Mom
1980) and Laberinto de pasión (Labrynth of Passion 1982), eflec Sain embace of omoden
values and aesthetics in the transition era and represent Madrid as a scene of cultural progress. I
pay particular attention to the way in which Almodóvar documents Sain changing caial. The
ajecoie of Almoda chaace aco he ci gee oad ne oibiliie fo gende
and eal eeion and a oenial fo economic mobili. Hoee, Almoda cinemaic
debut also maps the ambivalent cultural politics of the movida period, and reflects how the
egime endencie eincibed hemele ino he intimate spaces and perspectives of the
democracy. The moida ambialen oliic, I age, ultimately uncouple the ideal of democracy
from the state, rejecting the inheritance of the Spanish transition to locate democracy elsewhere,
as a Derridian politics to come.

28
The foh chae, Mapping the Disenchantment: Erratic Wandering in Álex de la
Igleia El da de la beia conine m aing Madid ban enionmen in he o -Franco
era. I anale ho Ale de la Igleia 1995 film, El día de la bestia (The Day of the Beast),
eeen Madid omoden ban coe , and the commercial area of la Castellana in particular,
as a dystopian geography. My analysis reads the film as a post-modern allegory of Miguel de
Ceane Don Quixote. I argue that the oagoni ean andeing and multiple layers of
misreading shape an ambiguous vision of Madid democaic een in hich he ign of
dictatorial duress are mistaken for the signs of the apocalypse. Indeed, the film is full of semantic
miscues, both within the narrative as a comedic device, but also as a metafilmic device that
undermines its claim to truth. Bilding fom Focal eading of Don Qioe a a icim of
modeni ho fail o ecognie diffeence, I oi he film Qioic fige a a heo of
misreadings. I argue that the film puts forward a practice of error and errancy that destabilizes the
symbolic structures of Francoism and ultimately, sketches a map that questions the finitude
authoritarian formations. Errancy allows for, if not a version of utopia, a heterotopic alternative to
the dystopian present.
The final chae, Mapping the Crisis: Historical Materialism and Creative
Docmena, anale ho nonficion film ma boh dicaoial de and he ocio -cultural
effects of the 2008 financial crisis. Through a reading of Giorgio Agamben political theory, I
show how the crisis is constructed as a temporal and political regime a state of exception, which
inherits its temporality from the dictatorship. My analysis ties together the ideological and
economic goals of the dictatorship and traces them to their logical conclusion through the analysis
of contemporary documentary films: Edificio España (The Building 2012) and La ciudad oculta
(The Hidden City 2019) by Víctor Moreno and Bricks (2017) by Quentin Ravelli. Both films turn

29
their focus to material spaces and to the objects and fragments therein. In doing so, the films
piece together a history of things, not beings. Building from the work of both Benjamin and Jane
Bennett, I bring together both dialectical materialism and new materialism to examine how things
precede and produce the construction of meaning, memory, and affect. I argue that these films
engage historical materialism as a way of thinking from the ruins of crisis, not in an attempt to
piece together a history of what went wrong, but to contemplate the fragments that remain.
I end this introduction by complicating its beginning. For, to begin with the itinerary of
Fanco bod i eha a bi of a ed heing. Fanco deah did no eeen an end o
Francoism, but in fact ensured its peaceful continuity. Fanco bod just one particularly potent
symbol for a larger apparatus of power that continued to exert force in the political and affective
structures of the democracy. In the high-profile debates over where and how the body of the
dictator should finally be laid to rest, we can sense how the legacy of the regime continues to
animae he een. B o fi he legac of he dicaohi ono Fanco iinean coe i o
overlook the ways in which Francoism remains very much alive, although its current forms are
sometimes less readily identifiable. In fact, to understand Francoism as the legacy of Sain
democracy is to reduce it to a dead body, to consign it solely to the past. As this dissertation shows,
Francoism has projected itself into the present through both retrograde and renewed forms.
Such narrow focus on the body of the sovereign overshadows the way in which power has
become increasingly delocalized in the contemporary world of global capital. In this sense,
Focal iing on oe ce i eha moe gen han ee a ae cede oeeign
to the global market. For, Francoism has shifted and reinscribed itself into the structures of
neoliberalism as a more contemporary mode of domination. As Wendy Brown has shown,
neoliberalism is destroying democracy, but it no longer needs an obvious military coup. Instead,

30
it converts the political character of democracy into a set of economic principles.68 The insights of
duress allow for a recognition of the modes in which domination restructures itself and, perhaps,
an indication of its next move.

68 Brown, Undoing the Demos.

31
Chapter 1
Mapping Memory :
El Valle de los Caídos and its Afterimages

Modern memory is, above all, archival. It relies entirely on the materiality of the trace, the
immediacy of the recording, the visibility of the image. What began as writing ends as high
fidelity and tape recording.
Piee Noa, Beeen Hio and Memo

Introduction
On April 1, 1940, a year after the end of the Spanish civil war, Franco issued a decree: he
would erect a grand monument commemorating the war in the harsh mountainside of the Sierra de
Guadarrama, just 50 kilometers from central Madrid. The stones of this monument, he claimed,
m def ime and fogeing o eeae he memo of he fallen in o Gloio
Cade. 69 This monument was to be named El Valle de los Caídos, or the Valley of the Fallen,
and would include a basilica and mausoleum along with a abbey to house Benedictine monks. That
same day, Franco himself set off the first explosion, blasting away the sheer rockface to begin
construction.
While the construction was originally expected to be completed within the year, the project
lasted neal o decade. The Valle of he Fallen became one of Fanco conming obeion
during his life70 and old become he dicao eing lace afe hi deah in 1975. The ie

69 Decreto 1 de abril 1940: Boletín Oficial del Estado, my translation. Available at
http://www.memoriahistorica.gob.es/es-
es/vallecaidos/Documents/Decreto141940ordenaconstruccionMonumento.pdf (accessed on 10
January, 2020)
70 Some went so far as to compare the monumental project to a lover. As the architect José María
Mnde i, Decían que este monumento era la querida de Franco y, claro, realmente, todas
la queridas le llevan a uno al desastre, ¿no? Como una pasión ciega, y las pasiones ciegas son

32
also holds the remains of the founder of the Falange party, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and is
the resting place of an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 soldiers killed during the civil war, most of them
from the Nationalist side.71 After Spain began the transition to democracy in 1975, the Valley was
quietly ignored by the new democratic government; the monument represented a history these
democratic leaders wished to forget in the name of reconciliation. Yet even in the democratic
period, the Valley continued to be a site of pilgrimage for Francoist nostalgics and neo-fascists,
and he floe laced on Fanco gae ee ala feh. The imoing one monmen
emained a if, in Fanco on od, defing ime and fogeing, and eiing a cloe o
he con iolen ecen a.
To say that the colossal Valley of the Fallen is difficult to forget is an understatement. The
monument extends strikingly from the natural landscape of the Sierra de Guadarrama. An
impressive 410-foot-high, 200-ton stone cross dominates the expansive forecourt and entrance to
the basilica. This cross is one of the largest in the world. Below it, the massive basilica is carved
dee ino he monainide. Wiho indo o naal ligh oce, he bailica cae -like
interior emits a palpable chill even on the hottest summer days. The effect of entering the cool,
dark structure is enough to provoke goosebumps. In fact, the monument seems designed to produce
a physical effect on visitors. As Justin Crumbaugh describes the experience of the entering the
structure, he dead ae enhined o as to overpower the living, rendering observers passive and
helle, foced o eeience hei on oblieaion. 72 Indeed, the size of the main nave is
oehelming; i i lage han Sain Pee Cahedal in Rome. Uon eneing he aee ace,

peligrosas; The aid ha hi monmen a Fanco beloed, and of coe, all beloed lead
one to disaster, right? Like a blind passion, and blind passions are dangerous.), qtd. in Sueiro, La
verdadera historia del Valle de los Caídos, 117.
71 Fendi, Gea in fin, 494.
72 Cmbagh, Afelife and Bae Life, 421.

33
the visitor encounters threatening statues of the Archangels Gabriel and Michael standing guard
and armed with swords. These warrior-like statues were cast out of the metal from cannons used
during the Civil War.73 This imposing and distinctly bellicose religious iconography is repeated
throughout the basilica. Prominent chapels within the nave honor the patron saints of the armed
foce, he na, and he ai foce, hile Jan Sangino cle eeening he armed forces
line he ane. Folloing Fanco ihe, 74 he dicao emain ee laced ominenl a
the altar of the culminating section, making clear that the Valley was a monument to the power of
the regime and its leader. In this way, the monument is the prime example of what Michael
Richad ha called he Fancoi lig of memo, o he acaliaion of oliical dicoe
and of memo hogh conecaing heoe. 75
Franco has now been dead for over four decades, but, as anthropologist Katherine Verdery
has shown, dead bodies lead political lives; corpses become vehicles in struggles over
signification.76 Cae in oin, in Jne 2018 Sain nel -elected socialist Prime Minister, Pedro
Sánchez, took action to contest the signification of the monument when he called for the
ehmaion of he dicao emain fom he Valle of he Fallen. Snche aged ha he
monmenaliaion of Fanco gae conied an ealaion of Fancoim, an ac fobidden
under the 2007 Law of Historical Memory. It seemed that such a conspicuous exaltation had no

73 Heoh, Sie of Memo and Dimemo, 470.
74 There is some debate as to whether Franco intended for the Valley of the Fallen to be his
burial site. According research conducted by historian Daniel Sueiro (1977, 208), the
monmen achiec and dafmen affimed ha Fanco had eniioned he bai lica as his
omb ih hi bod laced a he ala, a if he ee he man of he hoe.
75 Richards, After the Civil War, 97.
76 Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies, 24.

34
place in a liberal democracy and by August of that year, Sain goenmen had ied a ne
decee odeing he emoal of Fanco emain fom he Bailica a he Valle of he Fallen. 77
Ye he ehmaion of Fanco bod oed o be a difficl mae: i eied emoing
he dicao emain fom ndeneah a eigh 3,000 -pound granite slab and more
importantly, from underneath the weight of entrenched political opposition. Many conservatives
fiercely opposed the initiative to disturb the monument at all, arguing that to do so would reopen
old ond. Ohe oonen, liealiing he Valle mbolic fncion, aged ha aleing he
monument was tantamount to altering history. The most high-profile detractors of the move were
Fanco famil, eeened b he Fndacin Nacional Fancico Fanco. 78 They demanded that
he dicao emain be eineed ih milia hono in he Almdena Cahedal in cenal
Madrid, opposite the royal palace. This move would make the proximity between the dictatorship,
the Spanish crown, and the Catholic church starkly explicit. Instead, the Spanish government
ooed o eine he dicao emain in a iae ceemon iho media coe rage in the
Franco family tomb at El Pardo cemetery. Finally, on October 24, 2019, after a year-long legal
battle, Franco was quietly placed at El Pardo beside his wife.
Monuments from the Latin monumentum, meaning o emind compel us to remember
by presenting a particular historical narrative. Constructed to preserve memory, they are sites

77Available at: https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2018/08/25/pdfs/BOE-A-2018-11836.pdf (accessed
on 10 January 2020).
78 The European Parliament passed a resolution on the rise of neo-fascist violence in Europe on
Ocobe 25, 2018, hich condemned he Fondaion a an eni h at glorifies the dictatorship
and i cime. The eolion illae ho Sain eeaminaion of he dicaohi i a of
a larger push in Europe to confront fascism in the present. Full text of the resolution is available
at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P8-TA-2018-
0428+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN (accessed on 10 January 2020). It should also be
noted that some primary research for this project was conducted at the archives of the Fundación
Nacional Francisco Franco.

35
hee ime i anfomed ino ace. In hi ene, he Valle of he Fallen aem o def ime
by rendering it into the permanence of stone. Yet memory itself is by no means fixed; it is
subjective and variable. Because the site instantiates the cultural memory of the dictatorship, it
and oda a he cene of Sain naional and ongoing memo -work as it relates to the Franco
period.79 In this context, this chapter examines how the Valley of the Fallen continues to function
as a memorialistic site that is, how both the structure and its afterimage provoke a continual
confrontation with the past, which, in turn, reworks memory in the present. This chapter reads the
Valley of the Fallen and its afterimages as a way of exploring the following questions: How does
the construction of space become the construction of memory? And, how does the reevaluation of
this memory in the present contribute to the formation of democratic identity?
Taking he Valle of he Fallen a a aadigmaic cae of he dicaohi concion of
memory and its aims for posteriority, I consider the monument as a lieu de mémoire, defined by
anhoologi Piee Noa a a ie hee memo calie and ecee ielf that is, where
collective memory is formed and reproduced. Lieux are material, symbolic, and functional sites
hoe mo fndamenal oe [] i o o ime, o block he ok of fogeing, o eablih
a state of hing, o immoalie deah, o maeialie he immaeial. 80 Ceaed hogh a la of
memo and hio, lie ei beeen he ealm of hioical fac and a conceed ill o
emembe. 81 While this will to remember often takes root in the concrete, places of memory are
not necessarily material sites; they can be monuments, objects, or concepts that establish the

79 I use the term cultural memory to refer to the way in which a collective presents and
ndeand i hio. Clal memo can be ndeood a a go elaionhi o i a,
o a Aid Ell i, he inela of een and a t in socio-cultural contexts, Ell,
Clal Memo Sdie, 2. Clal memo la a cenal ole in oliic, hio, and
nation building.
80 Noa, Beeen Memo and Hio, 19.
81 Nora, 19.

36
importance of a particular historic moment. Places of memory, including monuments, are thus
always already a mediation of memory.
As Noël Valis has argued, ha emain of hioical een ae moe ofen han no
merely images, or representations of hio. 82 The Valley of the Fallen is one such image. Yet
it is popular culture that most often supplies the images or afterimages that facilitate cultural
memory. These afterimages continue to appear well after the event itself has ostensibly reached its
end. Media, and visual media in particular, preserve memory in that they continually recall its
afterimage. As I argue throughout this dissertation, cinema and other media form a memory
achie ha oide an imoan eecie ino he oliical conflic of Sain 20 th and 21st
centuries. Folloing Deida eflecion on he achie, hee media achie hae boh a
conservative and institutive function.83 That is, they serve both to protect memory and to produce
it. Thus, this chapter examines how the memory-archive of the Valley is constructed and re-worked
through a pre- and post-Transition visual archive that includes the Francoist Noticiarios y
Documentales (NO-DO), he Valle de los Caídos aining eie (1981 -1986) by the art
collective Costus, and Álex de la Iglesia 2010 dak comed film, Balada triste de la trompeta
(translated into English as The Last Circus). Spanning from the official media production of the
regime to the visual culture of the early and more recent democratic period, these case studies
oide fo a comaaie eecie of he monmen afeimage. 84

82 Vali, Ciil Wa Gho Enombed, 425 , my emphasis.
83 Derrida, Archive Fever, 7.
84 For an analysis of Transition-ea film ha eeen he Valle, ee Nanc Behie fine
article, which argues that the films of the Transition period appropriated the monument in a
plurivocal way, offering a conememo o he Valle of he Fallen. Behie, La
verticalidad superlativa del Valle de los Caídos y sus avatares cinematográficos durante la
anicin, 89, 101.

37
This archive of afterimages works against the fixed memory of the monument while also
diing an comfoing affimaion of i ane, hich old fiml conign i (and hoe
ho bil i) a foen icon of a hamed and dianced a. 85 These afterimages remind us that
the Valley of the Fallen is not an inert remainder of Francoism, but an archival site which continues
to generate symbolic force in the present. The case studies in this chapter illustrate how various
media work to resignify the dictatorial memory of the monument. Yet while these media objects
reimagine the image of the Valley of the Fallen and interrupt the imposed memory of the
dictatorship, they simultaneously point to the persistence of dictatorial memory. Disentangling the
democracy from the dictatorship is not so simple; the past continually irrupts into the present,
intertwining two purportedly distinct and incommensurable moments.

The Imposition of Memory in the (Re)Construction of Madrid

Madrid was not just the ideological battlefield of the civil war. The city also held one of the most
violently contested military fronts in the conflict, which, incidentally, was accessible from the city
center by tram.86 After a crucial initial defeat of the Nationalist uprising of July 18, 1936, the city
resisted nearly three years of continuous urban siege by the Nationalist forces. Fighting took place
throughout the city, with fronts at the Ciudad Universitaria, the Casa del Campo, and to the south
in Villaverde. The shelling from these battles left thousands of civilians dead or wounded and
displaced neal a hid of he ci eiden fom hei home. 87 To make matters worse, the
Nationalists carried out a campaign of air raids in heavily-populated central Madrid, which resulted
in large numbers of civilian casualties. This was the first time in history that air power had been

85 Stoler, Duress, 5.
86 Stewart, Madrid, 169.
87 Stewart, 170.

38
used against a civilian population, although this military tactic of terror would become all-too-
familiar by the Second World War.88 In addition to the threats posed by the regular bombardment
of the capital, civilians suffered from extreme famine and supply shortages. As Graham argues,
Fanco milia aeg a a lo a of aiion hich delibeael de o he conflic in
order to maximize human and materiel losses and thereby demoralize if not annihilate his
Republican enemy. 89
Because Madrid represented the political and symbolic center of liberal Republicanism,
he ci eceied a gea deal of Fanco f. A he egime a i, Madid old need o be
purged of its ideological crimes and it promptly set to ok o limpiar las calles de proletarios,
limpiar las cabezas de ideas, borrar de la ciudad los recuerdos de su paso inmediato (clean the
ee of oleaian, clean idea fom eole head, and eae memoie of he ecen a fom
the city).90 The Spanish poet Dámaso Alonso, one of the few intellectuals of the Generación del
27 who remained in Spain after the war, lamented the destruction caused by the civil war and the
violent post-a eeion. Hi 1940 oem, Insomnio, indicae he con equences of the war of
attrition, describing Madrid as a city of a more than a million putrefying corpses. The poem speaks
to the fact that the Nationalist violence did not end with the capitulation of the Republic in April
1939. Indeed, the Franco regime was built on a policy of death involving the torture and execution
of hundreds of thousands of political dissidents. By hioian Pal Peon accon oe 200,000
people were sentenced to death and thousands more were executed extrajudicially.91 This violent

88 The aerial bombardment of civilian targets was not limited to Madrid. The terror tactic was put
ino acice in ciie and on aco he eninla and a famol deiced in Picao
iconic 1937 painting, Guernica.
89 Graham, The Spanish Civil War, 98.
90 Juliá Díaz, Ringrose, and Segura Graíño, Madrid, 431.
91 Preston, The Spanish Holocaust, xii.

39
strategy effected a total erasure a damnatio memoriae of the Republican order. The killings and the unmarked graves left in their wake represent an instrument of terror in which the
nmaked gae i inended o b he ocial memo of iolence while at the same time
oking o enghen he fea baed egime of he eeao. 92 The Republicans who died
during the war had no memorials, and those executed afterwards disappeared from history, leaving
a abla aa fo he egime conci on of memory. Yet, as Alonso asks in his poem: Dime,
¿qué huerto quieres abonar con nuestra podredumbre? (Tell me, what garden will you fertilize
with our rot?).93 Indeed, what could be constructed upon such rotten soil?
Conideing he egime bal eeie aegie, i no iing ha Viva la
muerte!, o Long lie deah!, became a alling c fo he Naionali foce. Ye hi moo
did not simply refer to the Nationalist political strategy that called for a total annihilation of the
enemy to purge dissent and allow for the emergence of a new order. The regime also aestheticized
the martyrdom of their fallen soldiers, making the glorified caídos he cenal moif of
reconstruction.94 Death thus played a double function in the regime as both the principle strategy
fo eeion of he egime enemie and a cae fo he conico ealaion of i heoe. I
is fitting therefore that the greatest memorial to the civil war produced by the dictatorship should
be the giant mausoleum of the Valley of the Fallen.95 The monument and mausoleum can be

92 Fendi, Gea in fin, 7.
93 Alonso, Hijos de la ira, 81.
94 Cmbagh, Afelife and Bae Life, 421.
95 Excepting the ruins of the town of Belchite, The Valley of the Fallen is the largest civil war
memorial to this day in the Spanish state. Few new civil war memorials have been erected since
the transition to democracy. While notable monuments for victims of Francoist violence can be
found in A Coruña, Guernika, and Barcelona, Madrid lacks any major post-Transition monument.

40
ndeood a aadigm fo he dicaohi deign fo econcion. I i he lage ealiaion
of he egime o -war ideological leanings, historical pretensions, and political aspirations.96
Yet the Valley of the Fallen was just a small if highly conspicuous part of he egime
national reconstruction. Franco understood the importance of architecture as a symbol of state
power and set up the Dirección General de Arquitectura even before the civil war ended in 1938.97
In the eyes of the regime, the reconstruction must be physical, but also political and moral.98 The
Plan de Ordenación General de Madrid, drafted by architect Pedro Bidagor, outlined large-scale
reforms for a monumental Madrid that aligned both materially and aesthetically with the Franco
egime incile and aim. These initial post-war plans for reconstruction were grandiose.
According to the historian Santos Juliá, the plan sought to emhaie he ci symbolic status as
he caial (imblica de la caialidad) through a proposed revalorization the so-called imperial
façade along the bank of the Manzanares River, which included the cathedral, the royal palace,
and the headquarters of the Falange.99 Moreover, Bidago lan old e -organize the city along
hee main oe of acce. The hee monmenall conceied enance aene old gie
aele acce o Sain beacaic and oliical cene along oe hoe name efleced
the political ideals of the regime.100 Thus the Vía del Imperio, which stretched southeast towards
Noh Afica, efleced Fanco imeiali ambiion hile alo allding o he naion imeial

96 I would emphasize the adjective post-war here because, as I illustrate throughout this
dieaion, he dicaohi oe and policies changed over time as it adapted to national
and global political changes. As discussed in Chapters Two and Five, the regime would abandon
the neo-Herrerian aesthetic exemplified in the Valley of the Fallen to embrace more modernist
forms, in a manne ha ejeced hei adical oliical imlicaion hile eablihing Sain a
a modern country, Den Coad , Concing he Naion, 224.
97 Den Coad, Concing he Naion, 223.
98 Ruiz, Franco’s Justice, 50.
99 Juliá Díaz, Ringrose, and Segura Graíño, Madrid, 434.
100 Muñoz-Rojas, Ashes and Granite, 60.

41
past. The Vía de Europa led north, metonymically connecting Spain to Europe and to European
history. Finally, the Vía de la Victoria referred to the Nationalist victory during the civil war and,
imoanl, old lead aele ead o he Valle of he Fallen. In hi a Madid mo
important arteries narrated the ideology and ambitions of the regime.
Street names were easily changed and these, along with the installation of commemorative
lae fo hoe fallen fo God and Sain aond he ci, foced dail encone ih he
egime concion and imo iion of memo. Hoee, mch of he lan monmenal
reconstruction was greatly hindered by financial difficulties as Spain struggled to recover from the
ravages of its civil war during a period in which much of the world was engaged in World War II.
Thus the grandiose projects imagined by Bidagor and others remained unrealized while the regime
turned its focus to more pragmatic and pressing infrastructure and housing projects. While the
dictatorship did manage to build several monuments in Madrid, such as the Arco de la Victoria in
1956 or the Monumento a Calvo Sotelo completed in 1960, the plans to refashion Madrid into a
monmenal ci ee nee ealied. The Valle of he Fallen a bil oide of he Madid
urban center, but close enough so that it could be considered a grandiose expansion of the city.101
The monument therefore serves as the foremost paradigm through which to analyze the
dicaohi o -war designs to erect a lasting memory and to legitimate its own legacy in the
capital city.
Certainly the Franco dictatorship was not the only political power to put stake in
monumentality or in the preservation of a material legacy. As detailed by Miguel Caballero
Vázquez, the Second Republic also took an interest in constructing new monuments that reflected
its ideology. However, the Republican attitudes towards these monumental structures differed both

101 Behie, Im ágene ecalciane, 88.

42
from the ideas later espoused by the dictatorship and those of previous political powers. The
Republican debate surrounding monumentality sought to emphasize the collective protagonism of
the people (el pueblo) in a historical struggle while preserving national patrimony. 102 The
dictatorship, in turn, sought to emphasize verticality and hierarchy. This emphasis on hierarchy
can be understood as a reaction to the perceived threat of horizontality represented by the ideology
of the Second Republic and exemplified by the very notion of el pueblo in Republican discourse.
Indeed, he Naionali a he Second Reblic a an aack on he fndamen of hierarchy
and a claim fo n -dieced eloaion in man field: hilooh, oliic, edcaion, ok
and oe, achiece. 103 In keeping with these aesthetic tenets, Francoist monuments
overwhelming display an exaggerated verticality.
In the Valle of he Fallen hieach i efleced aeheicall boh in he elaie
eicali 104 of the structure itself, with the towering 410-foot cross and pyramid-like shape, and
in its position, which surveils Madrid from high on the mountainside. Echoing the rhetoric of the
regime, one English-langage gidebook decibe he ce a follo: he amid ha a
fom hich oiginae acenional dnamic of geae effec, and hich alo eemlifie he
religious and spiritual character of he monmen. 105 The notion of hierarchy is also reinforced
b he ominence ha a gien o he egime ma and heoe in he fige of Jo Anonio

102 Caballeo Ve, Cibele en el Palacio de lo Soie, 324 25.
103 Richards, A Time of Silence, 67.
104 Behie, La eicalidad superlativa del Valle de los Caídos y sus avatares cinematográficos
dane la anicin.
105 Tornero, Santa Cruz Del Valle de Los Caídos, 9. Valis (2007, 430) argues that many
guidebooks, including this one, present the monument through a neutral, touristic lens that erases
he ie hioical ecifici.

43
Pimo de Riea and Fancico Fanco himelf, a if o eceae Felie II Panteón de los Reyes
in nearby El Escorial.106
While he monmen aeheic ee mean o emhaie he oe of he egime a he
expense of the defeated Republic, the process of its material construction also served a disciplinary
function, reminding Republicans of their defeat. The Valley was constructed largely through the
exploitative labor of prisoners of war, many of whom suffered serious injury and even death as a
result of the dangerous working conditions.107 The dicaohi edemion hogh ok cheme
solved two problems: it alleviated the financial obstacles of reconstruction by providing a cheap
source of labor while also relieving the growing strain on the prison system. For by the year 1940
the retrospective application of Francoist laws to convict suseced Reblican mahie, had
produced unprecedented numbers of prisoners and there appeared to be no foreseeable end to the
ok of he milia ibnal. 108 The monument, in effect, became a mechanism through which
o ode, eglae, and cono l a olaion, a Cmbagh comellingl gge. 109 The Valley
of the Fallen must be understood within this double disciplinary scheme: as an imposition of the
political power of the victors of the civil war and reminder to the Republicans of their loss and
erasure.

106 The imperial past was an aesthetic referent for the dictatorship, especially in the early years.
The imposing and austere Neo-Heeian achiece in he le of King Phili II eeneenh -
century palace and monastery, El Escorial, was promoted as the point of departure for the
development of Spanish architecture, Val, Sanih Achiece 1939 -1958, 58.
107 The nmbe of oke killed in he monmen concion a idel b oce fom 14
to numbers in the thousands. The exact number of deaths is nearly impossible verify as many
workers died years later from complications related to silicosis from dust inhalation. For further
dicion, ee Heoh, Sie of Memo and Dimemo, 468.
108 Ruiz, Franco’s Justice, 84.
109 Cmbagh, Afelife and Bae Life, 420.

44
There is no doubt that the Valley was conceived by the regime as a paradigmatic memorial
site. In effect, the monument established the civil war as the foundational historic moment upon
which to legitimize the dictatorship and to materialize its political ideology.110 As Franco claimed
in his 1940 inauguration speech, the Valley would perpetuate the memory of the civil war as a
Gloio Cade, a em he Naionali ofen ed o connec he ideological conflic of he
civil war to Spain mhicied Caholic hio. In i hebolic concealiaion, he Valle of
he Fallen become, in Noa em, a lace of dicaoial memo. Fo Noa, dicaoial memo
i nelf -conscious, commanding, all-powerful, spontaneously actualizing, a memory without
past that ceaselessly reinvents tradition, lining the history of its ancestors to the undifferentiated
ime of heoe, oigin, and mh. 111 Ye Noa eflecion on lieux de mémoire also emphasize
that history and historical memory are formed, not through individual experience, but through a
larger cultural archive composed of monument and myth.
A Noa aged, Modern memory is, above all, archival. It relies entirely on the
materiality of the trace, the immediacy of the recording, the visibility of the image. What began as
iing end a high fideli and ae ecoding. 112 Underlying this statement is the idea of a
conflict between memory and history on the one hand, and technology and amnesia on the other.
Reminicen of Deida f ormulation of archive fever, Nora identifies a certain modern anxiety in
he concion of memo, hich he chaaceie a an obeion ih he achie ha mak
o age. 113 These anxieties around technology and amnesia were not new, but reflect the dialectic
of the pharmakon that Derrida traces from Plato to Freud. Technology forms an ambivalent relation

110 See Hepworth (2014) and Crumbaugh (2011) for analyses of how the monument functioned as
a discursive tool for the political legitimization of the dictatorship and an instrument of regulation.
111 Noa, Beeen Memo and Hio, 8.
112 Nora, 13.
113 Nora, 13.

45
to the past, simultaneously erasing it and recalling it. This pharmacological dialectic this
purported threat of the erasure of memory by technological advances ndegid Noa
formulation of lieux de mémoire. Today, I would argue that memory is inextricable from media.
History and historical memory are formed, not through historical fact or experience, but through a
cultural archive composed of mediated and mediating afterimages, of monuments and myths.

The Monument as Spectacular Archive
Whether or not they are explicitly named as such, lieux de mémoire are archives. The Valley of
the Fallen functions as both a spatialization and a mediaion of memo, ecalling Deida noion
of he achie a he echnical bae of memo. 114 In ohe od, Deida achie fom
a physical place in which to house memory. Accordingly, the Valley was meant to be site for the
domiciliaion of memoo e Deida em both through the site itself and the archive it
inaugurated.115 For the Valley of the Fallen served not just as a site of commemoration, but of
pedagogy and interpretation. To achieve this end, the regime established the Centro de Estudios
Sociale. Managed b he Benedicine ode ha ill lie in he Valle abbe, he center held
seminars and courses on Catholic social doctrine and published a journal of its proceedings. Its
ole a indicaed in he fi olme of he cene jonal a o elaboae and inee a Chiian
ehic ( elaborar e interpretar un sistema de ética cristiana que sea adecuado a nuestros
oblema). 116 A a ie of knoledge odcion, he cene a inended o ead he egime
ideology through scholarly activity and social initiatives.

114 Derrida, Archive Fever, 25.
115 Derrida, 2.
116 Bolen No. 1.

46
The center, in effect, built an archive to erase dissonant memories, gathering together a
single corpus in accordance with a em o a nchonici in hich all elemen aiclae a
ni of he ideal configaion. 117 In building such a corpus, an archive functions doubly as a site
of memory and amnesia, for its construction is predicated on an erasure of memory. Indeed,
archives are always built through a violent process of selection, such that any archive necessarily
odce a cicmcibed hio. A Sole ha i, achie ceae line of eeance, which
odce eeed, diabled hioie. 118 As an apparatus of postwar repression, the Valley is a site
of both real violence (through the material process of its construction) and symbolic, archival
violence (through the erasure of dissonant memories). In this way, the monument reproduced and
disseminated the discourse of the regime, constructing a domiciled memory intended to defy time.
The monmen achie encomae moe han he odcion of he Centro de Estudios
Sociales. Produced during the dictatorship and into the democratic era, the Francoist NO-DOs also
eed o einfoce he image of he oed immabili of he Valle one. The neeel
presented the Valley as an imposing and spectacular landscape. Using an preponderance of long
shots that emphasized the scale of the monument in relation to its human visitors, the NO-DOs
ojeced he maie ooion of he monmen ono Sain cinema ceen. Indeed, as Keller
has argued, the newsreels constituted a spectacle to power, a projection of authority and strength.119
The Franco regime began producing the newsreels in 1942 with the creation of the
Noticiario Cinematográfico Español. Produced in black and white until 1968, the newsreels
maintained a relatively uniform aesthetic format, which had little variation over the years. A short
title sequence set to music preceded the main program consisting of miscellaneous national and

117 Derrida, Archive Fever, 7.
118 Stoler, Duress, 73.
119 Keller, Ghostly Landscapes, 71.

47
international news segments presented through moving images and voice over. The content of the
newsreels mixed coverage of consequential events with routine popular celebrations and banal
occurrences. For example, NO-DO No. 1041A analyzed below contains segments on the release
of game animal in a monaino egion of Galicia, an aomaied ea urant in Germany that
served its patrons via a conveyor belt, and a report from the United Nations alongside the segment
on the Valley of the Fallen. This seemingly haphazard mixture of news items becomes coherent
when considering the NO-DO achial ime tus as the sole producer of a history in images; as
the Noticiario Cinematográfico aed in 1970, Aunque como es sabido, el ideal no es publicar
noticias, eso no quiere decir que no se filmen, ya que una serie de acontecimientos de la vida
diaria es conveniente que figuren en el archivo como auxiliares de la historia en imágenes del
futuro (Alhogh, a e kno, he ideal i no o blih ne, hi doen mean ha e
holdn film, as a series of events of daily life should figure in the archive as an auxiliary to a
history in images of the future…).120 The newsreel thus served to construct a future-oriented
achie of image ha old o hio or at least a particular conception of history.
The NO-DO newsreels were shown obligatorily before all films screened in Spanish
cinemas and constituted the only Spanish documentary or audiovisual news production for nearly
four decades. Thus, for better or for worse, the newsreels came to shape the conventions of Spanish
documentary production and he blic eecaion in egad o infomaie and adioial
content.121 But more than just fomenting non-fiction spectatorship, the newsreels came to shape
the cultural memory of life under the regime. As Vicente Sánchez-Biosca and Rafael Tranche
arge, las imágenes del NO-DO muestran, a quien quiera verlo, la huella no sólo de la posguerra

120 qtd. in Tranche and Sánchez-Biosca, NO-DO, 47, my emphasis.
121 Tranche and Sánchez-Biosca, 13.

48
española, sino también una huella de la memoria colectiva de casi cuarenta años (the NO-DO
images show, to whoever wants to see it, the imprint not only of the Spanish postwar period, but
also an imprint of nearly forty years of collective memory).122 In short, the NO-DO newsreels
represent more than just the propagandistic arm of the dictatorship; their aesthetic colors the
memory of the Franco years.
The Valley of the Fallen routinely appeared in the NO-DOs in the years after its completion
in 1959 as the newsreels documented the visits of foreign dignitaries and other official occasions.
Together, these segments provide a view of how the monument and basilica functioned
symbolically during the Franco era. Across the newsreels that show the Valley of the Fallen, the
monmen i eened a an oedeemined mbol of he egime oe. I i eeened
through a nearly-identical visual language over more than two decades of regular appearances
from 1959 to 1981. This formulaic montage of the Valley in the newsreels always begins with a
long, establishing shot of the 150-meter cross. In the case of the most spectacular NO-DO on the
Valley No. 848A, which recorded the inauguration of the monument in April 1959 these
establishing shots were taken from a helicopter [Fig. 2.1]. Such a vantage point allowed for a view
of both the monument itself, and the massive crowd gathered on the esplanade of the basilica. In
most other cases, the establishing shots were also taken from vantage points that provided scale to
the enormous cross [Fig. 2.2]. A notable exception to this model is No. 1041A, of 1962, which
docmen he making of Samel Bonon docmena of he Valley of the Fallen and begins
the sequence with a clapperboard obscuring the frame before cutting to the conventional
establishing long shot of the cross.

122 Tranche and Sánchez-Biosca, 18.

49

Fig. 2.1: No. 848A, April 6 1959 Fig. 2.2: No. 1260B, February 27, 1967

In what Nancy Berthie call a heoic of eicali, all he No -Do segments on the
Valley of the Fallen employ alternating high and low angle shots that emphasize the exaggerated
scale of the monument while also recalling religious reverence through the visual motif of
ascension. 123 The high angle shots often show visitors as they walk across the grand central
esplanade, creating a visual effect that reduces their bodies to pinpoints on the enormous white
expanse. Most of the newsreel segments alternate these high angle shots that exaggerate the scale
of the structure with low angle shots of the exterior cross and large pietà sculpture that simulate
reverence. Similarly, the shots in the central nave almost always look inwards to the altar of the
basilica [Fig. 2.3, Fig. 2.4]. Framed by the succession of enormous arches that structure the central
nave, these shots achieve a tunnel-vision focus on the main altar and the resting place of José
Antonio Primo de Rivera, and later of Franco himself. Finally, most of the newsreels also include
a ho of iio aking adanage of he monmen ominen eleaed oiion o e he
land below, whether it be the monastery to the west or the natural landscape of the valley to the
east. Without exception, the newsreels emphasize the hierarchy and verticality of the monument,

123 Behie, La eicalidad elaia del Valle de lo Ca ídos y sus avatares cinematográficos
dane la anicin, 91.

50
he eaggeaed cale he ineio and he eeio, and he cenal oiion of he egime ma.
In short, the newsreels reproduce the monument as a spectacle of power while aligning with the
aesthetic ideals of post-war Francoism: death and martyrdom, devout Catholicism, and verticality
and hierarchy.124

Fig. 2.3: No. 848A, April 6 1959 Fig. 2.4: No. 1041A, December 17, 1962

This spectacle serves to prop up dictatorial memory; it reinforces the rhetoric of the regime
hogh he moing image, concing a hegemonic ial achie. A Kelle ie: ecacle
construct a specific historical, cultural, and political narrative that imposes an image onto the
national landscape (as opposed to one that emerges from within it) in order to write over the real
condiion ha lie hee, elacing hem ih illo ecial effec. 125 In this case, the
spectacular archive of the NO-DOs produces a visuality of grandiosity that projects the dictatorial
memory of the monument onto the landscape. Moreover, the NO-DO ecial effec ae no
always concealed. Instead of obscuring the conditions of filming, NO-DO number 1041A, which
cae he filming of Bonon docmena, emhaie s the production of spectacle. Starting

124 Nanc Behie d of a eie of film ha eeen he Valle of he Fallen demonae
ho he camea emhai of eicali hogh eeme lo angle ho conine a an aeheic
convention in films ranging from ...Y al tercer a o resucit (1980, Rafael Gil), a film sympathetic
to Francoism, to the celebrated political documentary of the Transition, Informe general sobre
algunas cuestiones de inter s para una proyecci n p blica (1977, Pere Portabella).
125 Keller, Ghostly Landscapes, 84.

51
with the clapperboard, the montage reveals the presence of the filmic apparatus at every level. Film
crews operate camera dollies, position sound booms, and illuminate stage lighting. The director
oversees the shooting and gie age diecion. A li comb an ala bo hai ino lace. Ye
if not for the presence of the film crews and the tools of the film production, the shots are still
framed following the NO-DO eablihed conenion (ee fo eamle, Fi g. 2.3 and Fig. 2.4).
The Valle of he Fallen ha become a naal film e, a he oice -over declares,
overshadowing the fact that it has already served as a film set for the documentary newsreels and
a a figaie e fo he egime aging of o wer. Put otherwise, the monument was always
already a spectacle and a special effect that, echoing Keller, imposed its image on the national
landcae. The egime fomlaic and ecacla ial heoic fo eeening Valle of he
Fallen eschews naraie lali; i ignoe he eal condiion of he monmen concion
and suppresses the other narratives contained within the material space of the monument, such as
the stories of the unmarked graves within the crypt.
Like all archives, however, the Valley is haunted by what it excludes. In this sense, the
Valle cold be conideed a ghol landcae in Kelle em. Kelle posits ghostly landscapes
as sites that imlaneol ede mom of he condiion ha ceae hem [] and oj ect
spectral qualities, or remainders of a time that is out of joint, one that emerges yet is non
conemoaneo ih he een. 126 Ghosts always haunt a place, their uncertain ontology tied
to a material location. A ghostly landscape is thus a site tha allo he a o make he een
ae, a lace of coneed and lal memo ha oen he a ono he een. 127 Their
haunting implies a time out of joint, a fragmented or discontinuous historiography, and a

126 Keller, 89.
127 Keller, 89.

52
simultaneity of memory narratives. Indeed, the notion of the ghostly speaks to what Hepworth
decibe a he monmen dionan o coneed heiage the different meanings assigned
to the site for ghostly landscapes both hide and reveal the traces of history and memory inscribed
upon them.128
Landscapes maintain a close relationship to memory and time a fact that that the regime
ndeood ell a eidenced b Fanco conenion ha he one of he monmen, a memoial
landscape, would defy time. Landscapes contain material and indexical records, sedimented layers
of memory. The Valley of the Fallen illustrates how these landscapes, whether built or natural, are
no a aic a he aea. Deie he monmen oed immabili a a memoial
landscape, it is not a uniform fige, b a face oen o he inciion of eonal and oliical
deie. 129 These inscriptions (and reinscriptions) occur over multiple and constantly shifting
layers to build a heterogenous memory landscape. Thus while the Valley monumentalizes the
Francoist past, its stones reveal literal and figurative fissures and cracks, exposing the memory it
attempts to seal over. 130

The Monument and its Afterimage: Costus Valle de los Caídos Series
For Stoler, the danger of engaging colonialism and other historical traumas through their ghostly
traces is that these spectral logics place too much emphasis on remnants and returns. Hauntology,
she contends, does not sufficiently account for the way in which historical formations produce new
material effects. This is not to say that the past does not return to haunt the present moment for

128 Heoh, Sie of Memo and Dimemo, 464.
129 Byrnes, Fixing Landscape, 12.
130 In 2010 the monument was closed for restoration work on the dangerous cracks that formed
on the Pietà above the entrance to the basilica.

53
it certainly does. In the case of the Valley of the Fallen, the past clearly irrupts into the present,
manifesting its hauntological demand. Duress, however, thinks alongside and beyond the logics of
hauntology to consider how new memory formations adhere in the Valley. Stoler rightly
ndeand colonial achie no a dead mae, b a an aenal of o, a e of ool
wielded in imperial domination.131 Archives operate as if they are hermetic containers for the past,
when in fact they are open to the present and the future. For Stoler, this allows for archival contents
o be eaciaed o i ne goening aegie o eiiioned o ie ne hioie. 132
This is to say that he achie eoe o he een and fe allo fo mlile mode of
eignificaion, fo a mlilici ne hioie. A Deida obee, hee i no achie
without a technie of eeiion, hich i o a ha achie ae neceail lal. 133 Their
iterability allows for the consignation of memory, but also for the modification of the archive.
While the dictatorship created and promoted the Valley within a particular visual lexicon of
hieach and eicali, he monmen achie eand beond i conigned dicaoial
memory. Artists and filmmakers appropriated the visual lexicon of the Valley for their own ends,
odcing image ha cone he egime ecacl ar visual rhetoric. If history is primarily
remembered as an afterimage, these works illustrate how afterimages are not reducible to their
referent.
The art collective Costus are at a generational remove from the trauma of the civil war that
the Valley of the Fallen purports to commemorate. The collective was formed by the artists Juan
Carrero (1955-1989) and Enrique Naya (1953-1989). Both artists were born after the end of the
a and came of age afe he dicaohi mo eeme eiod of iolence. A s Enrique Naya

131 Stoler, Along the Archival Grain, 3.
132 Stoler, 3.
133 Derrida, Archive Fever, 11.

54
assuredly declared in a 1987 interview on RTVE, El fanimo no no afec. 134 And while the
lasting effects of Francoism in their work are certainly debatable as I argue below, 1975, the same
ea of Fanco deah, maked he beginning o f he do joint artistic career with their relocation
from Cádiz to Madrid. Still, it could be argued that Costus belong to the postgeneration of the civil
a, o e Maianne Hich em fo he geneaion ha inhei a hioical ama. 135 Carrero
alo inheied, in a a, a connecion o he monmen ielf. The ai ncle Jan Sangino,
with whom he lived when he first moved to Madrid, sculpted eight of the sculptures within the
bailica. Sangino Los Cuatro Ejércitos: Tierra, Mar, Aire y Milicias feae fo aee
aio hich allegoie he fo banche of he amed foce. Thee cle inied Co
1981 dich, Cao ejcio, in he Valle de lo Cado eie. 136
Ceaed beeen 1980 and 1987, Co eie con ists of 25 paintings inspired by the
cle of he monmen. An addiional aining, Cadillo, i no baed on an aicla
work within the monument and contains images from outside the basilica. The series is painted in
bright acrylic color, with some of the works painted in fluorescent paint that produces luminescent
effects under black light. Costus painted all the works in collaboration; Naya painted the realist
figures in exacting detail and Carrero painted the backgrounds and clothing in vibrant color and
ih a moe abac le. In addiion, he do fiend in Madid eed a model: Co
canvases are populated with the likenesses of Alaska, Fanny McNamara, Paz Muro, Tino Casal,

134 La Tade (Con Bibi Andeon).
135 Hich, The Geneaion of Pomemo, 103.
136 The painting captures the austere aesthetic of Sangino sculpture. The four men in the
painting (including the likenesses of Juan Carrero and Fanny McNamara) pose with aggressive
postures and solemn expressions and are shown in austere contemporary dress, contrasting with
the more vibrant and fashionable clothing represented in other paintings in the series, for example
in Camen o Cadillo. Hoee, he colofl backgond of Cao ej cio cona ih
the somber colors of the figures.

55
and Bibiana Fernández (formerly known as Bibi Anderson), among others. In this sense, the
aining ae a eamen o he famed eaion of he do aamen in Malaaa a he
epicenter la movida madrileña. The do aamen a Calle Palma 14 een eed a a filming
locaion fo Almoda 1980 film, Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón. These
recognizable figures of the movida mark the paintings as a product of their time, illustrating how
the aesthetics of the regime adhered after the transition to democracy.
The Valle de lo Cado series is meant to be an homage to Madrid. As Carrero stated in
an ineie on RTVE, en na neceidad de hace na eoicin dedicada a Madid. Y n
buen día pues visitamos el Valle de los Caídos, que conocemos desde la infancia, y vimos unas
posibilidades enormes en todo el conjunto arquitectónico que había allí de esculturas y decidimos
que querríamos hacer estas esculturas y presentarlas como amigos nuestros en cuadros (I fel an
ge o ceae an eoiion dedicaed o Madid And one da e iied he Valley of the Fallen,
which we knew from childhood, and we saw some enormous possibilities in the sculptures of the
whole architectural setting and we decided that we wanted to make those sculptures and present
them in paintings as friends of ours.)137 The monument functioned in true mnemotechnic fashion
for the artists, as they returned to the site to recall childhood memories. The resulting series thus
ineec o diinc emoal momen: he do childhood memoie of he monmen and he
contemoa momen of Madid movida.
Naya continued the interview, arguing that the Valley of the Fallen must either be
eceaed [ recuperar] o bombed [ bombardear] monument. While Costus opted for the
former, there were also several attempts at the latter. In 1960 the anarchist group, Defensa Interior,
laned an eloie deice hich damaged he chch e in he Bailica cenal nae. In he

137 La Tade (Con Bibi Andeon).

56
aemen claiming eonibili fo he aack he oe, Fanco: ni en mba e dejaemo
descansa anilo (Fanco: no een in o omb ill e le o e in eace) .138 Another
attack nearly four decades later in 1999 by anti-fascist organization GRAPO destroyed a
confession booth. Yet Costus did not intend to efface or erase the monument. Instead, for the
ai, eceaion mean an aeciaion of he monmen aeheic o aiic ale, dioced
from its historical and political significance.139 For his part, Naya characterized the monument as
beaifl ih ome e good cle. 140 As art historian Esperanza de los Ríos has shown,
he do aeheic eceaion of he monmen combined elemen of he baoe and claical
religious iconographic traditions with more contemporary influences from Pop-Art, German
Eeionim, and Comi aeheic. 141 Yet, echoing the reviews of art critics on the exhibition
of the series at the Casa de Vacas in Madrid in 1987, de los Ríos does not read any political
significance into the works. The paintings hae a el aiic aeheic , she writes, iho
an oliical ignificance. 142 However, aesthetics and politics share a dialectical relationship; and
man of he aeheic deciion in Co eie cold be considered politically subversive.

138 Sueiro, La verdadera historia del Valle de los Caídos, 230.
139 I hold be noed ha Co alo ggeed emoing Fanco emain fom he ie o
recuperate the Valley as a public space. In a paragraph that was later excised from their
eoiion caalog fo El Valle de lo Cado, Co oe: ha e oencia e como
merendero de fin de semana resulta ideal. Dándole esta utilidad, se acelerará el proceso de
traslado del cadáver del general a su pueblo natal, pues en un país al que tantos años ha costado
salir de su régimen absolutista resulta muy peligroso tener al Dictador que lo sometió tan
espectacularmente enterrado (we must promote it as an ideal picnic area. Giving it this purpose
will accelerate the process of transferring the cadaver of the general to his hometown, because in
a country that took so long to leave behind its absolutist regime, it is very dangerous to have the
Dictator who subjected it so spectacularly buried), Pérez Manzanares, Costus, 180.
140 La Tade (Con Bibi Andeon) m anlaion.
141 de lo Ro Mane, La iconografía de la Vigen, 545.
142 de los Ríos Martínez, 542 my emphasis.

57
To begin, Costus reimagine the iconography of the Valley through the colorful pop
aesthetic and psychedelic colors in a way that refigures the somber and austere aesthetic that
dominae he Valle iconogah and the España gris ha ified he dicaohi eiod.
As Alejandro Yarza argues, the parodical camp aesthetic deployed by Spanish artists during the
aniion eiod eed a a aeg o libeae o nmake he Fancoi iconogahic eeoie.
Yarza ie, eoing o ion a i main eaon, cam eccled kich, aodicall miing i
ih a ide ange of le fom Ween ola cle imbing i ih ne meaning. 143
Fhemoe, Co eolae he Valle Naional Caholic iconogah ic repertoire with a new
cast of cultural icons: the transgressive figures of the moida. Co e of fige ch a he
transgender actress Bibiana Fernández as models for traditional religious virginal figures subverts
the paradigm of purity symbolized b he Valle allegoical Vigin. In hi a, Co
paintings resignify the Valley of the Fallen and re-present the memory of the monument for the
democratic period.
However, their work is still tinged by dictatorial memory through a lingering aesthetic
elaion o he egime eeenaion of he monmen. In aicla, he aining in he eie
that represent the architectonic components of the Valley of the Fallen make use of many of the
same angles as the NO-DOs discussed above. While paining ch a El Cadillo, Paona de
la Poincia de fica, and Cio Yacene, all odce an aeheic dicod ih he
dictatorial images of the monument through their abstract backgrounds, psychedelic colors, and
transgressive figures, the aesthetics of verticality and hierarchy are not always undermined. For
eamle, El Cadillo, a dich comleed in 1982, eeen he fige of Fancico Fanco
holding a red flag in the foreground [Fig. 6]. This was not the first time Costus had painted the late

143 Yarza, Making and Umaking of Francoist Kitsch Cinema, 13.

58
dicao. Thei 1981 oai, Aparición de Franco al Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, depicts Franco
appearing on horseback with his arm raised in the fascist salute to Jesus. These paintings are among
the few overt, literal references to Franco and Francoism that emerged from the movida. Here,
Co delomen of he feihiic iconogah of he Francoist past is already a return of the
repressed in the early democracy.144 Fo a Vila noe, en los primeros años del posfranquismo
el a ado se torna Cosa impensable porque esa es la única manera en la que España puede
reescribir su nueva modernidad (in he fi ea of o -Fancoim he a become an
unthinkable Thing because it is the only way in which Spain can rewrite its new modernity). 145
El Cadillo i he onl aining in he Valle de lo Cado series that was not inspired
b one of he monmen cle. Hoee, he iece i eminicen of Fanco -era portraits
ch a Fancico Ribea 1939 illaion Alegoría de la Victoria. While Ribea oai of
Fanco cleal celebae he dicao oe b oaing i bjec a lage han life again a
backdo of mbolic flag, he oliical ignificance of Co aining emain ambialen.
Co aod y could be read both as an oblique homage to authoritarian portraiture or as a
beie eimagining of hee ealie fom. The flag held b Co Fanco fige a a
ggeie il i neihe he Sanih naional flag nde Fancoim, no he Rojiga lda flag of
democratic Spain. In the painting, the monument looms in the background, represented in a
Fauvist-like abstraction of pastel colors. The large cross marks the highest point in the landscape.
Its striking verticality is echoed in the brightly-colored trunks of the trees below it, emphasizing
verticality as an aesthetic device. However, as if to subvert this spectacular verticality, the flag in
the foreground is titled on its axis.

144 Vilarós, Mono del desencanto, 230.
145 Vilarós, 243.

59

Fig. 2.5: Co (Jan Caeo and Enie Naa), El Caudillo, 1982,
Ayuntamiento de Cádiz, Espacio de Cultura Contemporánea.

In this painting, the face of Co Fanco fige i ained ih le deail han man of
the other works in the series, yet the model for the dictator is still recognizably Tino Casal, a close
friend of Costus and another central figure of the movida. Casal was a singer who was well-known
for his flamboyant and glamorous outfits. The black leather jacket and gloves worn by Casal in
the painting contain some militaristic elements (notably, the braided aiguillettes on his right
holde and medal on hi che). Hoee, he daing ed fabic of Caal long nic and he
decorative details of his jewelry and boots lend a sumptuous air to his attire. The flowing red fabric
appears three times in the painting in he flag, he fige hi, and daed oe a one in he
foegond. While he mache (ogehe ih he omiion of Caal al bead) ecall Fanco
ignae look, he aie and long ed hai ca el Cadillo a s an androgynous figure, subverting
the militaristic austerity of the dictatorship and its rigid forms of gender expression. Here, the
en of he dicao no longe ake he fom of he iile fige of Co ealie Aparición,
but of an androgynous parody. Indeed, the colorful sunrise in the background may signal the

60
dawning of a moment in which the aesthetic and social values of the dictatorship can be questioned.
Ye in man a, he aining eecie and comoiion eodce he ial la nguage used
to represent the Valley in Franco-era media as analyzed in Figures 2.1 and 2.2. The monument
maintains its privileged position as the highest point in the surrounding landscape, rising above
the trees and dominating the skyline. Moreover, the Franco figure also maintains a similar
hierarchical position as dictatorship-ea oai ch a Ribea. If hi i a ne dan, he
nascent morning still looks back to the dictatorship for its aesthetic referent.146
Co 1982 painting, Cio Yacen e, alo deic he achiece of he Valle hogh
the habitual perspectives of the NO-DOs [Fig. 2.6]. Cio Yacene i one of hee aining in
the series depicting the cycle of the Passion of the Christ. In the painting, the lifeless Christ figure
lies upon a marble slab that is covered by a fluorescent green cloth. The model for this painting
was Pepe Rubio, a well-known fashion designer of the movida and a close friend of Costus.
Rbio face and bod ae cleal and ealiicall ained, con rasting with the bright colors and
thick brush strokes of the background and the green cloth. The lifeless body of Rubio/ Christ shows
he mak of he ccifiion, alhogh hi face aea eacefl. Co endeing of Rbio
supine alabaster-white figure recalls religious the iconography of the Dead Christ of the sixteenth-
century, such as the sculptures of Gaspar Becerra or Gregorio Fernández.147 Deviating from most
of the works in the Valley of the Fallen series which are set against an abstract background, this
aining i cleal e ihin he bailica. The aining eecie look inad fom cenal

146 The aining alo look back o claical ok. De lo Ro comae El Cadillo o
eeenaion of heoic fige ch a Ago de Pima Poa o o oliical allegoie ch
a Tiian Ea a socorriendo a la Religi n Cat lica, de lo Ro Mane, La iconografía de
los Evangelistas, las Virtudes, lo Acngele Cio.", 342.
147 de lo Ro Mane, La iconografía de los Evangelistas, las Virtudes, los Arcángeles y
Cio, 341.

61
nave towards the main altar of the basilica, reproducing the common perspective of the NO-DO as
shown in Figures 3 and 4. A portion of the cross is visible in the triangle a figuration of the holy
trinity fomed b Rbio ben leg. The hae of Rbio leg i ofened and eeaed in he
rounded arches leading down the central nave, providing a tunnel vision to the centerpiece of the
bailica m ain ala: Fanco omb.

Fig. 2.6: Costus (Juan Carrero and Enrique Naya), Cristo Yacente, 1985,
Ayuntamiento de Cádiz, Espacio de Cultura Contemporánea.

While Co incooaion of iban colo, cone cle fige, and o a
aesthetics allows fo a lea a aial eceaion of he monmen fo o -Franco times, the
Valley of the Fallen still exerts a certain aesthetic authority in the series. That is, he Valle de lo
Cado eie eca he Valle in a moden ligh , signaling that the monument was outdated
iho neceail ineogaing o eeing i ignificaion. Co aining ignal a
perpetuation of Francoism that the transition sought to exorcise. The ghost of Francoism takes a

62
new aesthetic form and become maeial hogh hee ok. To oe Albeo Medina, El
fantasma toma cuerpo, se torna fetiche (The gho ake a bod, become a feih). 148
It has been over three decades since Costus completed their series, yet the Valley of the
Fallen remains a contested site of memory, standing in for the larger memorialistic conflicts that
have preoccupied Spain during the transition and in the democratic period. Certainly the recent
ehmaion of Fanco bod i an aem o eignif he monmen di ctatorial memory. But
Co ok i an eamle of he a in hich he Valle ha alead been bjec o infomal
and spontaneous memory-work through the production of images that interrogate its monumental
narrative. With these paintings Costus contribe o he monmen achie of image, adding
another layer to the sedimented landscape. The archive is a hegemonic structure that leaves an
impression on the object it guards. But through its cracks and openings, the archive also allows for
a certain amon of mabili and fo aiance in ineeaion. A Deida ie, he
ineeaion of he achie can onl illminae, ead, inee, eablih i objecb incibing
itself into it, that is to say by opening it and by enriching it enough o hae a ighfl lace in i. 149
Therein lies the archival paradox: the memory it attempts to seal over against time must be opened
to and modified by the present in order to preserve and interpret its narrative authority. It
follows that the archive is not static, but grows through the proliferation and the piling on of
meaning. This process establishes and re-establishes the archival object, requisitioning the archival
contents in the service new histories, as Stoler has it. These histories may align with the dominant
logic of he achie fomaion o they may contest them.

148 Medina, Exorcismos de la memoria, 135.
149 Derrida, Archive Fever, 67.

63
Moving Afterimages: lex de la Iglesias Balada triste de trompeta
Although they were among the first to do so, Costus were not the only artists to reconceive the
monument for the post-Franco period. More than twenty years after Costus exhibited their
paintings in Madrid, director Álex de la Iglesia represented the Valley for a new generation of
Spaniards, now citizens of a mature democracy and an established member state of the European
Union. Although if Enrique Naya sought to recuperate the monument, de la Iglesia chooses the
latter option to bomb it in his 2010 film Balada triste de trompeta. 150 The film presents the
experience of the Spanish civil war and Francoist repression through the gritty aesthetics of the
horror genre. It has largely been read as an allegory of the lasting trauma that the Franco regime
inflicted on Spanish society,151 and could be considered within a larger cycle of films that engage
horror as means to apoach he memo of he ciil a, inclding Vco Eice El espíritu de
la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1973), o moe ecenl Gillemo del Too El espinazo
del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone, 2001) and El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) to
name just a few.
Balada begins in 1937 in civil war era Madrid with a circus performance that centers on
the classic comic juxtaposition of the silly clown and the sad clown. One of the children watching,
Jaie, i he film o tagonist and the son of the silly clown. As outlined above, the year 1937
was a period of intense urban fighting in Madrid and the circus performance is interrupted by the
sounds of a military bombardment. Soon, the Republican army barges into the grimy, dimly-lit
cic en o eci a todos los que puedan sostener un arma (anyone who can hold a weapon)

150 De la Igleia i no he onl film ha enac he decion of he monmen. In ha
Berthier (2015, 109) describes as an inance of insolente radicalidad (inolen adicali ) the
1979 martial arts film Jaguar Lives (El Felino) directed by Ernest Pintoff, Joe Lewis, and
Chiohe Lee, begin ih he eloion of he Valle lage co.
151 See Sheriff, Luengo, or Yarza.

64
in he defene of Madid. A bale cene ene and Jaie fahe i aken ione b he
Nationalist forces. When the war comes to an end, Javier bears silent witness to the post-war
iolence of mma eecion and oe. Jaie fahe i en o ok on he concion of
the Valley of the Fallen, joining the ranks of thousands of prisoners who labored in the redemption
of sentences through work scheme.
In a crude attempt to enact revenge, young Javier plants dynamite deep within the
monainide of he concion ie. Jaie aemed decion of he monmen i a
symbolic act against the structure of power that oppresses him and his father. Ultimately, though,
this is both a futile and tragic act. The small explosion does not cause significant damage to the
structure, b el in hi fahe deah. In hi cene, he Valle of he Fallen i ill a okie.
When young Javier approaches the monument, there is a scaffolding around the cross, and in a
subversion of the aesthetic conventions of representing the Valley the camera never pans up to
reveal its exaggerated height. De la Iglesia withholds the expected image of the monument as a
spectacular whole. Instead he frames the monument in fragments: large portions of the pietà statue
cross the frame, carried by workers. This same statue fragment, which decorates the base of the
monmen co, ill lae aea in Jaie deam and in the final culminating sequence of
the film. Here, the fragmentation of the monument points to the fragmented nature of memory and
to the lapsus in the official dictatorial version.
The temporal cuts in the film are achieved through the use of archival photographs,
newspaper, or film footage, illustrating the way in which media form an archival substrate for
clal memo. A Thoma Deen coecl noe, feen ineeal efeence o film and
eleiion ae a ignae elemen in man of de la Igleia film, inclding El día de la bestia,

65
which I analyze in Chapter 4.152 Balada begin ih a cedi eence, hich neal condene
he enie hio of Fancoim hogh ne image and cli fom ficion film. 153 The film then
cuts from the 1940s to 1973 through a montage of archival footage that celebrates the inauguration
of he monmen in 1959 and he celebaion of 25 ea of eace in 1964. Thi i ineeed
with images of popular entertainment from the time period that indicates a country celebrating a
eiod of eace and oei. B he fondaional iolence of he film een i no fa belo
the surface and it will emerge in new forms.
The segment of the film set in 1973 opens with the adult Javier as he applies his clown
make in a mio. In keeing ih de la Igleia enchan fo engaging he aeheic of he
Spanish esperpento tradition, reflections are a motif throughout the film.154 Javier is the sad clown,
a dioed eflecion of hi fahe ole a he silly clown. The trauma and tragedy of his childhood
een him fom folloing in hi fahe fooe, ineing hi fahe ained mile ino a
aheic fon. Jaie ok in a cic locaed in he hanon of Madid eihe [Fig .
2.7]. A consequence of the wave of post-war economic migration from depressed rural areas to
ban cene, hee cmbling in chaaceied Madid bb in he 1970. The eeen
the marginalization of the urban poor during the dictatorship, explored in detail in Chapter Two.
The location of the circus in this economically depressed setting highlights that fact that the circus
i made of a go of maginalied fige, hed o he eihe. 155

152 Deen, le de La Igleia a Ae?: Seeming/ Being and Ideni, 313.
153 Yarza, Making and Umaking of Francoist Kitsch Cinema, 210.
154 Buse, Triana-Toribio, and Willis, The Cinema of Álex de La Iglesia, 63.
155 Sheiff, Fanco Mone, 135.

66

Fig. 2.7: Sill of cic eing in Balada triste de trompeta with Javier in the foreground

The cic i conolled b Jaie foil, he ill clon, Segio, a iolen man ho imoe
his dictatorial will upon the rest of the performers. Sergio physically abuses his lover, the beautiful
trapeze artist, Natalia. Javier soon falls for Natalia too, and the resulting love triangle is the source
of he film denoemen. Jaie aack and difige Segio and hen ecae o he foe, hee
he lives like a beast. In a misguided attempt to in Naalia affecion, Jaie alo difige hi
own face to resemble the sad clown makeup he wears in the circus act. This act of mutilation
ndecoe ho de i alo a condiion incibed in he fleh. 156 The implications of
dictatorial duress are at once structural and individual, collective and personal, material and
affective.
The Valley of the Fallen acts as the setting in which the central dramas of the film reach
their apotheosis: first, the death of the father, and, finally, the battle between Javier and Sergio for
Naalia affecion. De la Igleia ignal he Valle oagonim fom he cedi eence b
lacing he image of he monmen alongide image of he film cenal chaace. Ye the
filmmaker presents the Valley on its side, the cross stretching horizontally against a darkened sky
[Fig. 2.8]. Thi oienaion deabilie he co and be he monmen hieach and

156 Stoler, Duress, 158.

67
exaggerated verticality. The shot creates a visual effect that makes the cross appear as if it is
toppling over.

Fig. 2.8: Still from the opening credits of Balada triste de trompeta.

In her seminal work on the history of mnemotechnics, Frances Yates shows how the art of
memory is closely linked to both spatial and visual perception. The ancient mnemonic system used
lace and image eeciel a a a iing -able and he lee ien on i. 157 As Yates
obee, hen e en o a lace afe a conideable abence, e no meel ecognie he
place itself, but remember things that we did there, and recall the persons whom we met and even
he need hogh hich aed hogh o mind hen e ee hee befoe. 158 Bruno
elae Yae moing a of memo o he haic caaciie of een -day media, arguing that
in o on ime, in which memories are (moving) images, this cultural function of recollection
ha been abobed b moion ice. 159 Jaie en to the monument allows the film to map
the memory space of dictatorial duress, its affective geographies already carved dee ino Jaie
che. In doing o, he film n ice ino achiece, anfoming hem ino a geogah

157 Yates, The Art of Memory, 17.
158 Yates, 37.
159 Bruno, Atlas of Emotion, 8.

68
of lied, and liing ace. 160 Through these chogeogahic cinemaic, de la Igleia film
provides access to the lived and living geography of dictatorial duress.
After rendering the cross on its horizontal axis, de la Iglesia will again subvert the
conenion of he monmen iconogah b aking he camea dee inide he labinhine
catacombs. As Yarza notes, labyrinths often see a a ial meaho fo he inicae ah of
memo. 161 The catacomb sequence clearly presents the heterogenous and contested memory of
he ie. While hee cene ee ho on a film e, he een an image of he monmen
inaccessible catacomb and eeal he Valle dee ece. In he eence, Jaie abdc
Naalia and bing he o he Valle, hee he ha been liing he monain beanean
catacombs. As mentioned above, the monument holds the remains of at least 30,000 soldiers from
the civil war. These remains include those killed on both sides of the conflict, although the
inclusion of Republican remains was a great source of contention among Nationalists during the
construction of the monument and as late as 1958. Many of the egime ideologe conideed i
sacrilegious to include the remains of Republicans in the monument at all, making clear that
econciliaion a an afehogh o he monmen concion. 162
Nevertheless, tens of thousands of corpses were transferred from mass graves throughout
he con o he monmen c, ofen iho he ahoiaion of iing famil

160 Bruno, 9.
161 Yarza, Making and Umaking of Francoist Kitsch Cinema, 241.
162 These debates are reflected in the archival documents of the Fundación Nacional Francisco
Franco. For example, in document 23221 (Rollo:187) Father Guerrero writes: El monumento
del Valle de los Caídos, es también cementerio, dormitorio. Allí no pueden descansar las cenizas
de los asesinos de obispos, sacerdotes, religiosos, beneméritos ciudadanos, niños y vírgenes
inocente (The monmen of he Valle of he Fallen i alo a cemee, a domio. The ahe
of the murderers of bishops, priests, religious people, worthy citizens, children, and innocent
virgins cannot rest there).

69
members. 163 These remains are contained in several caverns carved into the rock behind the
bailica chael and he all of he cenal nave. The cadavers were stacked on top of each other
in wooden coffins, although time has disintegrated the coffins and years of water damage further
eroded the placement of bodies, such that many of the remains now form part of the structure
itself.164 The entrances to these charnels were then cemented shut and covered with stone. Thus
with the journey deep within the caves and tunnels below the basilica, de la Iglesia figuratively
breaks through the stone and eschews the conventional touristic experience of the monumental
complex.
To be clear, these scenes were shot on a film set. Yet this fictional journey provides the
only available view into the otherwise inaccessible catacombs. Indeed, the details of the
maolem ee acicall nknon nil a 20 08 investigation into civil war disappearances
led to a judicial order to open the crypt.165 Many of the details of the film are realistic, reflecting
he deail of he foenic eo. De la Igleia caacomb ae dak and dank, lieed ih
unmarked hman bone. Thi filmic o of he monmen ineio eoe he eal and frankly,
horrific conditions of its construction. However, de la Iglesia also twists the catacombs into a
grotesque spectacle by filling them with twinkling lights and other circus decorations. This
startling contrast between the dark space and the dazzling components used to stage the spectacle
of the circus draw attention to the dark underside of the catacombs as a distorted reflection of the
larger spectacle of the monumental complex. Balada was made on a film set, but this only
emhaie he Valle of he Fallen fncion a a e, o age. Tha i, he Valle a he ie
fom hich he egime aged an obcene ecacle of oe and deah. Ulimael, de la Igleia

163 Fendi, Gea in fin, 484.
164 Heoh, Sie of Memo and Dimemo, 478.
165 Fendi, Gea in fin, 484.

70
unsettling o ndoe he monmen odcion of ecacle b eealing he ghol
landcae, o he eence of dionan naaie conained ihin he oedeemined ace of
the monument.
Yet the tour does not stop here. The film takes the viewer to the top of the cross, another
site not open to the public. Sergio, now accompanied by the Civil Guard, follows Javier to the
Valley in an attempt to save Natalia. Yet it is not clear which clown presents more danger to her.
When Sergio enters with a pistol, Natalia runs, exiting the catacombs and climbing the giant cross
in an attempt to escape. In a familiar horror genre convention in which the female victim runs
ai o he on eil, Naalia ecae oe ake he a dak aiell en ih falangist
yoke and arrow crests and other symbolic miscellanea, including several bolts of yellow and red
fabric.166 Finally, she exits onto the arm of the cross and the camera pans to an extreme high angle,
giving a vertiginous perspective of the cross from above. This perspective exaggerates the cross
so that it again appears as if it will topple over. The other members of the circus watch the events
unfold from below. One of the circus members rides his turbocharged motorcycle off a ramp in an
attempt to reach Natalia, but crashes into the side of the cross to create a spectacular explosion.
This explosion, like Javie ealie dnamie aem and he eeaed eal -life terrorist attacks on
the Valley, does little to affect the integrity of the monument. Attempts to destroy the monument
are futile, the film seems to imply, the stones of the Valley of the Fallen will endure.
Ulimael, he cene end ih Naalia aaen icide. Foced o chooe beeen he
two evil clowns, Natalia ties the vibrant red cloth around her waist and jumps from the 150-meter
cross to her death. Javier and Sergio are arrested and sit facing each other in the back of a police

166 Naalia ajeco and he ial comoiion of hi chae cene ecall he bell oe cene
in Alfed Hichcock Vertigo (1958), a film that also uses vertical architecture as a visual trope
and a likely reference for de la Iglesia.

71
van, their faces are no longer painted in exaggerated smiles and frowns but carved into a similar
grotesque grimace which laughs and cries at once. Tears stream down their faces as they stare at
each other, making clea ha each i a eflecion of he ohe. Ulimael, Segio i no Jaie
rival but his uncanny double. The savage cainitic battle between the clowns is revealed to be
ambigo figh in hich, a Gina Sheiff al noe, he diincion beeen g ood and evil is
nclea, and he oagoni hae all b lo hei mind. 167
The horror trope of the evil clown is an uncanny subversion of the familiar clown character,
in which the playful and benign childhood performer is rendered disturbing and dangerous. The
reflecting images of both Javier and Sergio as murderous deranged clowns are truly horrific and
lead o ome enefl momen in he film. Thi hoo oe indicae ha he egime
structural remains just beneath the surface, both materially and psychologically as duress deforms
fleh and mind. The goee ineio of he Valle of he Fallen eflec he clon choic
fits of violence. In her reading of the film, Sherriff provides a helpful etymology of the word circus,
noting that the Greek kirkos forms the root for both circus and circle. Sherriff thus posits the circus
a a fiing meaho fo he ciclai of conflic, a ocie eii iolence on ielf ell
afe he end of a. 168 A he film imlie, Madid econ ruction upon the violence and
deaaion of he a geneae fhe iolence. Echoing Alono oem, he fe een of
the film was constructed upon rotten foundations.
For Costus, the Valle of the Fallen was tacky, old-fashioned, and outdated. Yet the duo
celebaed monmen aiic and aeheic mei. Receaion mean daing he faci
iconography for modern times. In Balada, on the other hand, de la Iglesia reveals the Valley as a

167 Sheiff, Fan co Mone, 137.
168 Sherriff, 138.

72
horrific site of violence, whose iconology must be interrogated and contested, if not destroyed. In
the end, each text reimagines the monument in its own way, thereby revealing the cracks of the
monmen oedl immable one. Thogh h is resignification, the texts of Costus and de
la Iglesia reveal how technology and tradition work together to preserve and re-present a historic
and chic a. Noa lieux de mémoire are not immutable; the sites are open to interpretation.
Because lieux are purely self-referential signs (they have no referent in reality), they become in
the words of Noradoble. Tha i, he lieu i a once a ie of ece cloed on ielf,
concentrated in its own name, but also forever open to the full range of its possible
ignificaion. 169 The monmen olific afeimage eeal a fom of infomal and onaneo
memory-work that contests its monumental narrative, indicating that lieux can be modified by their
re-presentation. As Pierre Nora contends, mode n memo i, aboe all achial, and, I would
add mediatic.170 Modern memory is inscribed through and modified by its representation and
preservation in media.

Francos Bod and the Future of the Archive
If the Valley of the Fallen symbolizes a form of dictatorial memory, as I have argued, what might
democratic memory look like? Monuments serve as a potent mnemonic tool for a particular
construction of history. For this reason toppling these symbols of power and ideology is often a
central part of a regime change. Examples of the material and symbolic reconstruction of memory
abond aco he coninen: he mlile eignificaion of Pai Place de la Concode; 171 the
removal of fascist symbols in post-war Germany and Italy; the de-Stalinization which took place

169 Noa, Beeen Memo and Hio: Le Lie de Mmoie, 24.
170 Nora, 13.
171 See Geoge Baaille ea, The Obelik in Visions of Excess.

73
across Eastern Europe in the early 1960s and hich alo inclded he ehmaion of Salin
emain fom he maolem in Moco Red Sae; and, lae, he emoal of Lenini ae
and symbols after the fall of communism in the former eastern bloc. Yet in Spain, the transition to
democracy was facilitated through the 1977 Amnesty Law, which protected the perpetrators of
crimes under the dictatorship. The law provided the legal framework for a pact of amnesia in which
the past would be deliberately forgotten, ostensibly to avoid provoking another civil conflict.172

However, the fact that no such monumental or historical reckoning occurred during the Transition
period in Spain is indicative not just of the feared instability of the early democracy, but of the
institutional ties to Francoism that carried to the democracy. Forgetting, as Stoler has shown, is
no a aie condiion b an achieed ae. I conie a dioiion of diegad, ha ee
the apparatus of imperial dominance.173
Th Jli i coec in noing ha memo and fogeing ae dos lados de la misma
oeacin ( two sides of the same operation); one can choose to remember or to forget.174 After
all, the selection of what to remember and to forget is the fundamental process for the construction
of an archive. While Francoism was never really forgotten during the transition period, the
democac ha ecenl een a en o memo. A i ell knon, he lae 1990 and eal
2000 a a lage -scale mediatic and cultural examination of the civil war and dictatorship. The
Association for the Recuperation of Historical Memory represents the most literal form of
uncovering the Francoist past through the excavation of mass graves. Yet this period of so-called
memo boom also featured a great deal of memorialistic production that returned to the history
of the civil war and the dictatorship through novels, fiction films, and documentaries. This cultural

172 Jli Da, Echa al Olido.
173 Stoler, Along the Archival Grain, 237.
174 Jli Da, Echa al Olido, 109.

74
and political movement culminated with legislative action in the form of the Law of Historical
Memory, passed in late 2007. This much-debated law gives rights to the victims of the civil war
and Francoist repression while formally condemning the dictatorship. The law also calls for the
removal of Francoist symbols such as plaques and monuments, although it exempts those symbols
that contain religious or artistic merit. The Valley is protected as a place of worship under this
clause.175 While the Law of Historical Memory is limited in scope, it does work to normalize the
evaluation of the past as part of the construction of democratic identity and to institutionalize the
memory of the victims of the war and dictatorship. To this end, the government appointed a
commission of experts in 2011 to recommend steps for overhauling the site. The resulting report
called fo he ehmaion of Fanco emain a ell a he deelomen of an infomaion cene
a he ie in ode o lace he ie and i hio ino i ocio -oliical cone. 176 Such an
interpretive center would allow for democratic memory by uncovering the heterogenous narratives
ihin he monmen caacomb of memo.
Hoee, he memo boom momenm had ignificanl deceaed b he ime he
commission issued its report and no action was taken. For one, the conservative Partido Popular
had regained a majority in government. Yet by this time, public interest in the recuperation of
memo had alo begn o fade. Labani noe ha Sain memoialiic naaie olifeaion
in the early aughts was a result of both market demand and journalistic fad and contends that this
cultural process had reached a saturation point.177 Furthermore, as I have argued elsewhere, the
memory debates shifted their referent from the crimes of the dictatorship to the 2008 financial
cii a hi ne ace amaic een [] came o define he clal odcion and he

175 Encarnación, Democracy Without Justice in Spain, 167.
176 Heoh, Sie of Memo and Dimemo, 120.
177 Labani, The Poliic of Memo in Conemoa Sain, 119.

75
diecion of oliic in he econd decade of he ne millennim. 178 The ehmaion of Fanco
remains thus represents a return to the debates of the memory boom, ignaling he ae eneed
commitment to the construction of democratic memory. It is a recognition that, far from instigating
anohe ciil conflic, he eealaion of he legac Fanco eiod ma enghen he democac
political culture and the legitimacy of its institutions.179 It is perhaps no coincidence that this return
to historical memory has occurred during a period when both the conservative PP and the socialist
party PSOE have undergone intense public scrutiny for charges of political corruption.
It is, of course, expected that the state actively engages in the construction of collective
memory; this is, after all, an exercise in the formation of national identity. Furthermore, as Norman
Spaulding has observed in the American context, the construction and reworking of memory takes
place not only through monuments and lieux de mémoire, but through the legal and legislative
process.180 The Law of Historical Memory is one such way in which the state builds collective
memory as part of a naional ojec. Ye hile he ehmaion emoed Fanco hical bod,
he mbolim of Fancoim emain incibed in he monmen. Like Deida Fedian achie,
the Valley of the Fallen is haunted by the phantom of the father. Removing the body does little to
negate the dictatorial memory imposed through the structure. In an informal conversation, Sánchez
lamented the difficulties of resignifying the Valley due to the political connotation that the
monument already has in civil society. As he stated, La opinión del Gobierno es que el Valle no
puede ser un lugar que se deba resignificar, no puede ser un lugar de reconciliación (The oinion
of the government is that the Valley cannot be a site that could be resignified, it cannot be a place

178 Sheean, Noalgic Maeialim, 337.
179 Langenohl, Memo in Po -Ahoiaian Socieie, 170.
180 Salding, Coniion a Conemonmen, 1999.

76
of reconciliation). 181 While certainly the interpretive center recommended by the commission
old be a e oad eignificaion, Snche oin i ell aken, fo, hen ocheaed b
the State (democratic or not) the confrontation with history and the reworking of memory often
fail to allow for heterogeneity. The contemporary creation and negotiation of sites of memory
across the world reflects an effort to distance the apparently democratic present from violent or
authoritarian pasts. Yet as the case of The Valley of the Fallen shows, these pasts are often
uncomfortably and inextricably entwined in the present. Moreover, as Keller has pointed out, there
is no consensus on what thinking historically means, on whose version of events is the correct
version.182
Still, as Graham rightly proposes, memo ok ha emanae fom ciil ocie i
inheenl moe healing. 183 A I hae aged, he Valle image ha alead ndegone a eie
of reinterpretations. In other words, the lieu de mémoire has already been modified by the
eanion of i achie, b he olifeaion of i afeimage. Th he Valle lage clal
archive is an essential component to the refiguration of the Valley itself and to the collective
production of meaning in the present. Costus and de la Iglesia are certainly not the only artists or
groups to represent and resignify the Valley of the Fallen in the post-Franco era. From the satirical
proposal in El Jueves to turn the monument into a Francoist theme park to documentary films such
as Pee Poabella 1977 Informe general…, fom Toni Amengal hoobook, Flowers for
Franco, o Calo Roja noel, El Valle de los Caídos, the monument has been reimagined from

181 Pedo Snche renuncia a hacer un museo de la memoria en el Valle de los Caídos y opta
por dejarlo como cementerio ciil.
182 Kelle, The Valle, he Monmen, and he Tomb, 71.
183 Graham, The Spanish Civil War, 146.

77
a aie of cone oe he coe of Sain democaic eiod. 184 Together these works
illustrate the process of democratic memory formation. They create a heterogenous media archive
that presents democratic memory not as a static or eternal historic image, but as a complex process
with multiple and sometimes contradictory significations. In the chapters that follow, I use cinema
o ineogae memo ie of aio fom aco Madid ban landcae. Thei omeime
contradictory meanings illustrate both the strange and the expected impressions of dictatorial
duress.

184 The satire publication El Jueves ran an article on the conversion of the site into
Fachaena ha oed: Diein aa oda familia nacionalcaolicia! (Fun for the
whole National Catholic family!). The comedian Leo Bassi made a similar proposition. See
Keller (2012, 81) fo an anali of he adical gee of Bai declaaion, hich [emie]
any signification of power to elicit the idea tha the monument is a site of empty consumption.

78

Chapter 2
Mapping the Economic Miracle:
Peripheral Cruising through Elo de la Iglesias La semana del
asesino

Nowhere, unless perhaps in dreams, can the phenomenon of the boundary be experienced
in a more originary way than in cities.

Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project

Fronteras: barreras físicas o simbólicas que se oponen a la libre circulación de las personas
o al establecimiento de vínculos entre la gente. Las hay arquitectónicas, económicas,
raciales, de género, etc.

(Borders: physical or symbolic barriers that oppose the free circulation of people or the
establishment of bonds between people. The can be architectonic, economic, racial,
gendered, etc. )
Diccionario de las Periferias

Introduction

If he fi chae eloed film achial imle and analed he mnemonic landcae
it produces, this chapter turns to analyze the affective contours of such filmic landscapes through
the framework of psychogeography. Films, I argue, create a form of sensual and visual mapping
through camera and narrative movement. The medium of cinema thereby traces an alternative to
more totalizing forms of cartography that privilege visual mastery, although this is not to say that
film does not also serve to reproduce or reinforce the dominant language of such visual regimes.
Accoding o Lefebe heo egading he ocial odcion of ace (fom naal o abole
space), space reproduces the ideological values and meanings of the society (or mode of

79
production) that produces it.185 In other words, space is both a product of the dominant political,
social, and economic structures, and key to the reproduction of those structures. As was evident in
he fi chae anali of he egime memoialiic e -construction of Madrid both through
urban planning and the careful construction of a media archive in the post-civil war period, the
production of space is ultimately political. Indeed, the material reconstruction of Madrid was a
fundamental means for the perpetuation of Francoism. For Lefebvre, this process occurs as part of
a triad of conceived space (an abstraction of space such as the spatial representations of urban
planners), perceived space (material space, or the larger urban networks and patterns in space),
and lied ace (a eeienced bjeciel b he ci inhabian). Th, hile Chae One
focused primarily on space as conceived or perceived, Chapter Two asks how space is lived.
Specifically, how do conceived and perceived space shape the subjective emotional and psychic
experiences of their inhabitants? How does lived space in turn refashion perceived space?
Furthermore, if conceived and perceived spaces are respectively mapped through spatial
abstractions and aerial views, how is lived space mapped? I propose here that the medium of
cinema allows for a poetic and affective mapping that makes lived space sensible.
The cedi eence of Elo de la Igleia La semana del asesino (Cannibal Man, 1972)
begins with a high-angle establishing shot of a Madrid suburb.186 The camera pans over a few old
plaster buildings surrounded by unpaved roads and empty dirt lots, while brand-new high-rise
apartments loom in the background [Fig. 3.1]. This nearly 180-degree panning survey provides the
lay of the land and conain ha Bno ha called a caogahic anfeence, a maing

185 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 26.
186 The ile anlae ino Englih a The Week of he Mdee. A diffeen eion of he
film was distributed in English under the title Cannibal Man. I refer the original Spanish version
of the film and script throughout this chapter unless otherwise noted.

80
imle ha eablihe aial aamee and iae he iee in ace. 187 The cartographic
panning stops over one house that seems particularly isolated and we see children playing soccer
in the empty lot nearby. Then, with a zoom, de la Iglesia takes us through a skylight and into the
living room of the dilapidated house to introduce the viewer to the protagonist, Marcos (Vicente
Parra), who reclines on a couch. The camera movement from the totalizing overview of the
neighborhood to the micro-cartography of the living room illustrates the way that the gaze of
neighbors can traverse private space. In this sense, the seemingly self-contained private dwelling
is actuall oo and emeable. 188 Until here, the editing seems to function according to the
cartographic impulse described by Bruno. However, the film soon subverts the totalizing
conventions of the cartographic establishing shot. Although Marcos does not look back, the camera
does; a jarring reverse shot up to the 14th-floor balcony exposes Néstor (Eusebio Poncela), a
voyeuristic neighbor, as he surveys the neighborhood below through a set of binoculars [Fig. 3.2].
This eye-line shot charts the trajectory of the look in space,189 linking No anoic gae ih
he film caogahic eablihing ho.

187 Bruno, Atlas of Emotion, 271.
188 Wojcik, The Apartment Plot, 77.
189 Lippit, Cinema without Reflection, 9.

81

Fig. 3.1: A cartographic shot that maps the socio-economic disparities of Madrid's
periphery. The new high-rise contrasts sharply with Marco's dilapidated home.

Fig. 3.2: A reverse shot exposes the voyeuristic Néstor on his 14th-floor balcony.

The opposing high and low positions presented in this opening sequence stand in for the
pronounced social incongruities of late-Francoist Madrid, calling particular attention to the stark
divide between the bourgeois and working classes. The camera maps these socioeconomic
disparities onto the urban geography, both horizontal and vertical. If we zoom out again to the
anning ho, e ae able o ialie Madid diided geogah, in hich he geogahic limi
of streets and parks serve as partitions of socioeconomic status. The zones of new urban
development contrast sharply with the run-down buildings and dirt lots of the shantytown. To echo
Benjamin eflecion in he eigah of hi chae, geogahical and figaie bondaie

82
come together in a striking manner in cities.190 Indeed, the explicit physical boundaries formed by
streets, railroad crossings, or rivers often mirror the social borders of class, race, or other identity
categories. Boundaries serve to contain, to enclose, and to exclude. Yet the paths they trace also
imply the possibility of an intersection. Thus the demarcation of borders posits a space of meeting
between groups. Similarly, while La semana del asesino traces a visual geography of the
socioeconomic boundaries of 1970s Madrid, it also reveals intersections. The film shows how
boundaries may be permeated and contested through the tactic of walking, such as the late night
strolls taken by Néstor and Marcos or the camera movement that allows the spectator themselves
o alk he ci. Boh naaiel and henomenall, he film i a fom of ban jone, a mode
of experiencing the very fabric of the city and of crossing its borders.
La semana del asesino is set in 1972 in one of the radial housing developments of late-
Francoist Madrid as Spain teeters on the precipice of its transition to global postmodernity. The
film takes place on the periphery historically, geographically, and socially.191 In this context, a
periphery must be understood not simply an edge or an outer limit, but a space conditioned by
social, political, and cultural marginalization. To this end, the writers of Diccionario de las
periferias argue that a series of factors constitute a peripheral space, including lack of resources,
institutional abandonment, systematic exclusion, fear or suspicion regarding inhabitants, and
inequality both within the periphery and in relation to the center.192 Peripheries thus form both

190 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 88.
191 Paul Julian Smith considers de la Igleia cinema a eeenaie of the Spanish Transition
in mlile ene: .i chonicle he hioical eiod of he hif fom dicaohi o
democracy; it exploits the distribution hiatus between the end of censorship and the legalization
of pornography; and it depicts in the struggles of the homosexual hero the emergence of a new
figure in Spanish film: the gay man who was to speak for and of himself, Smith, Laws of
Desire, 162. La semana del asesino represents the beginnings of this larger body of work.
192 Carabancheleando, Diccionario de las periferias, 24 25.

83
spatial and metaphorical boundaries; they mark zones of exclusion. As Benjamin observes, such
boundaries are experienced in an originary way in cities and in dreams.193 To this I would add that
film, too, allows for a primary experience of the boundary.
La semana del asesino maps he lied ace of Madid eihe boh a a e of
boundaries and as a set of intersections and draws attention to the alienation generated by
peripheral urban development and social marginalization. The film was marketed sensationally as
a horror movie. When it was first shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 1972, the distributors
reportedly provided the audience with sick bags. 194 Yet La semana del asesino mixes these
elements of gruesome horror with trenchant social criticism. And over the course of his career, de
la Iglesia would continue to expose the issues of marginalized urban populations. The Basque
director became one of the most notable exponents of the understudied Spanish film cycle known
as cine quinqui, a cinema largely characterized by the portrayal of urban delinquency, drug use,
and prostitution.195 La semana del asesino contains elements of the gritty social realism that came
characterize the quinqui cycle. After the death of Franco, de la Iglesia would make much more
explicit social critiques of systematic oppression and urban marginality. Films such as Navajeros
(Knifers, 1980), Colegas (Pals, 1984), El pico (El Pico,1983), and El pico 2 (El Pico 2,1984) are
dama ha deal ih he ndeold of dg and cime in Sain ban eiheie. Reading La
semana del asesino anachronistically in light of these later more explicit films sheds light on the
ealie film imlici ideological conen.

193 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 88.
194 Smith, Laws of Desire, 159.
195 The em ini deie fom he Sanih od quinquillero or quincallero which
translates to English as scrap metal collector. The term is often used as a pejorative to describe
someone who makes a living through petty theft and informal street dealings. Thomas
Whiake The Spanish Quinqui Film: Delinquency, Sound, Sensation (Manchester University
Press, 2020) will constitute the first scholarly monograph in English on the quinqui cycle.

84
In addition to its veiled social critique, La semana del asesino i he fi of he dieco
films to deal with homosexuality, another theme that de la Iglesia featured repeatedly throughout
his oeuvre. While a gay relationship is only implied in La semana del asesino, later films such as
El diputado (The Deputy, 1978) and Los placeres ocultos (Hidden Pleasures, 1975) feature
explicitly gay characters and relationships.196 A Pal Jlian Smih noe, de la Igleia oeuvre
contains a complex interplay between Marxist politics and homosexual desire.197 La semana del
asesino in particular shows how sexuality is inflected by class and politics.
M anali foce on he a in hich de la Igleia fomal and aeheic deciio ns particularly, the use of montage, eye-line, and high and low angle shots map the socio-economic
disparities represented by the periphery. As I elaborate below, these formal cinematic conventions
serve the scopic regimes of visuality by structuring ways of looking through authoritarian positions
of control and the lens of gendered desire.198 Ye he dieco emhai on moemen offe
another lens through which to explore the divisions or disparities of the periphery. The two
opposing viewpoints represented by the perspectives from the high-rise and the shanty town mirror
de Ceea conceal ai of he oe and he alke. I elaboae he fige of he alke o
posit a practice of cinematic cruising as a form of urban mapping. Following Bruno, I consider
filmic caogah a a ehicle fo clal maing ha allo acce o he hifing geogah
of inimae ace (269). In eening a mobile cinemaic of homoeoic deie, de la Igleia

196 In a script annotation that was surely added to appease censors, de la Iglesia explicitly
diao an hin of homoeali in La semana del asesino and instead compares Néo
voyeuristic compulsions o Jame Sea behavior in Alfed Hichcock Rear Window
(1954), de la Igleia and Fo, La semana del aeino, 1. Conideing Lee Edelman ee
eading of Hichcock film, hi comaion doe no ell ee de la Igleia diaoal (Rea
Windo Glahole ).
197 Smith, Laws of Desire, 127.
198 Mirzoeff, The Right to Look, 5; Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures, 14 27.

85
film demonstrates how cruising, as a queered form of de Ceea alking, can offe an ooing
eecie o he oe oaliing anoicim. Thi filmic maing aem o look beond
cartography as a totalizing practice and the conception of the periphery as a strictly geographical
space. In ohe od, he eading aem o aoid n[ing] he ideological ce in he od
of Saa Nadal, ho age ha he conceal emegence of he ace of he eihe a an
aem o n a ocial eali ino e geogah. 199 La semana del asesino, I argue, traces an
alenaie geogah beond Madid cicmcibed bondaie in ode o eeal he ci
ineecion. Folloing Kimbelee Cenha heo, I conide ineecionali boh lieall,
as a spatial configuration, and metaphorically, as a way of understanding the way in which subjects
face varied forms of marginalization.200 Cruising thus presents a mechanism for mapping the
complex, and often clandestine, mingling or intersection of identities in urban space (namely class,
sexuality, and political identities).

Un País de Propietarios, or, Conceived Space
By the time the Valley of the Fallen was completed in 1959, the regime was no longer focused on
the construction of such memorialistic public works. Instead, urban planning had evolved into the
constructed amnesia of the modernizing technocratic state. To understand the urbanization of the
periphery of Madrid, one must return to the post-civil war history of urban planning and social
housing. As Ruiz has shown, the Franco dictatorship harbored antipathy towards urban areas; these
ee een a a diec coneence of oliical libealim, hich a belieed o hae caed he
moal debaemen of he indiidal. 201 To this end, the initial autarkic post war policies of the

199 Nadal, Inodcion, 9.
200 Cenha, Demaginaliing he Ineecion of Race and Se, 149.
201 Ruiz, Franco’s Justice, 50.

86
dictatorship served to interrupt the processes of urbanization that had begun in nineteenth-century
Sain. Ding he eal 1940, he egime omoed adiional ale and aemed o e -
ruralie b ealing con life and eading Saniad o en o he conide. 202 Yet,
this was not simply an ideological position; the regime saw agricultural work as a means to recover
the post-war economy and feed a nation struck by famine. In a response to the food shortages that
were so widespread that the 1940s became known in Spain as the años de hambre, government
bodies such as the Instituto Nacional de Colonización attempted to increase food production
through rural resettlement initiatives.203 While the name was changed to the Instituto Nacional de
Reforma y Desarrollo Agrario in 1971, the original name underscores the colonial nature of the
dicaohi econcion ojec , which turned imperial strategies of domination back onto
the population of the metropole. Although these ruralizing policies ultimately proved ineffective
in recovering the postwar economy, the postwar food shortages were eventually alleviated. Thus
in 1947 Franco announced freedom of movement and a mass exodus from the countryside began,
inaugurating the developmental and aperturista period of the 50s and 60s.204 Over the next two
decade i million Saniad, o a fifh of he con olaion, lef he conide eihe o
urban centers such as Madrid or Barcelona, or to work abroad in countries such as Germany.205
A Sain caial boh befoe and afe he a, he ci of Madid in aicla efleced
the tension between liberalism and conservatism, industry and tradition. The 1946 Bidagor Plan
did not just imagine a monumental Madrid as noted in Chapter One, it also provided for the
development of social housing in the capital. Indeed, the plan for urban renewal proposed and

202 Faulkner, A Cinema of Contradiction: Spanish Film in the 1960s, 5.
203 Ross, Spain since 1812, 82.
204 Richardson, Constructing Spain, 11.
205 Faulkner, A Cinema of Contradiction: Spanish Film in the 1960s, 5.

87
mainained a aicla ocial ce b ceaing a eie of one in elaion o ocial a. 206
While the lofty aesthetic and monumental goals of the plan may seem at odds with the more banal
construction of austere social housing developments, these two initiatives must be understood as
complementary parts of a disciplinary reconstruction plan. The monumentalism served to
inaugurate he hioical momen of dicaohi, hile he lan caefl aenion o cla
divisions in the housing developments were an effort to control the potentially dangerous popular
classes. As José Luis Arrese, the first Minister of Housing during the dictatorship stated in a 1959
eech, pocas cosas son tan esenciales de caminar unidas como el suelo y la ordenación urbana;
el arte de los edificios y el paisaje de los poblados; los servicios educativos y la formación; en fin,
todo aquello que al fin de la jornada conforma la vivienda con el modo de vivir (i i ael o
essential that things go hand in hand as in the case of the land and urban planning; the art of the
buildings and the landscape of developments; the educational and training services; in short,
everything that at the end of the day allows housing to correspond with a way of living).207 In this
sense, Francoist urban development was a means to impose order in which the construction of
housing was intended not just to provide a place to live, but to instill a way of living.
Yet while the new policy had anticipated substantial urban growth,208 Madrid still lacked
available housing and was not prepared to absorb such large numbers of migrants. Drawn by the
promise of employment opportunities, nearly two million Spaniards migrated to the city in the
1950s and 1960s, doubling its population.209 The acute housing shortage became a substantial

206 Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, Guía de arquitectura y urbanismo de Madrid:
Tomo I, 29.
207 Aee, Seech, 1 .
208 Fanco Fin de ao eech in 1954 called fo na cada de la iienda. Thi
miliaiic eminolog illae ho he egime heoic ding aime cloel mioed he
language used to refer to civil society after the war.
209 Montoliú, Enciclopedia de Madrid, 72.

88
problem, and set the backdrop for popular films such as El inquilino (The Tenant 1958), directed
by José Antonio Nieves Conde or El verdugo (The Executioner 1963), directed by Luís García
Berlanga, which exposed the precarity city-dwellers faced. While El verdugo has largely been read
as an indictment of the death penalty through black humor,210 mch of he film s comedy arises
from the tight living quarters of the protagonists. Indeed, José Luís (played by Nino Manfredi)
takes over the job of the retiring executioner, Amadeo (played by José Isbert), in large part because
the job entails the possibility of being awarded an apartment in the public housing lottery. Despite
Jo L clea objecion o caing o an eecion, he eecione job eeen an
opportunity to finally have an apartment instead of renting a crowded shared space. El inquilino
on the ohe hand, aiie he cel abdiie of Madid concion ind. The film
follows the obstacles faced by a middle class family in the city whose rented apartment is
demolished around them by a global construction firm that will build new low-quality apartments
to be mortgaged for high profits. El inquilino highligh he ecai of Madid hoing
situation, subject to the whims of an unstable market.211 These films, which condemn the real
problems of the housing crisis are the thematic precursors to La semana del asesino, which deals
with many of the same urban problems a decade later.212
De la Igleia age ha film ch a Niee Conde El inquilino belong to a Christian
or Falangist radicalized cinema a cinematic tradition that was, in the end, not far from cinema
informed by Marxism.213 And like Berlanga or Nieves Conde, de la Iglesia set out to make an

210 See Marsh, Popular Spanish Film under Franco, 122 44, for a fine analysis of the film in this
regard.
211 Laon, The Saial Fi , 125.
212 Film was not the only vehicle for such urban critique. The celebrated 1962 novel by Luis
Martín-Santos, Tiempos de silencio, also features the problems faced by Madid ban oo
and middle classes as a central plot device.
213 Aguilar and de la Iglesia, Conocer a Eloy de la Iglesia, 111.

89
explicitly ideological film with La semana del asesino: Hay que señalar que es mi primera
película explícitamente ideolgica. a ha na dimenin olica, cai miliane (I m be
noed ha i i m fi elicil ideological film hee he oliical dimenion i almo
militant). 214 Although while for Nieves Conde or Berlanga urban problems are the source of
comedy, for de la Iglesia the socioeconomic inequality and the housing crisis in Madrid provide
the context for a horror film. Indeed, the housing problem would get worse before it got better, for
in 1975 it was estimated that 47% percent of the population lived in inadequate or substandard
liing condiion and ha a lea 35,000 infaiienda o caa baja, ch a hoe hon
in the film, existed.215 Ye hi a alo he eiod of Sain o -called economic miracle, a boom
of rapid economic groh and indialiaion fom 1959 o 1974 in hich he con GNP
grew at one of the highest rates in the world. La semana del asesino reveals the underside of the
much-laded economic miacle b eening he iolen cona of Madid neen b an
deelomen and focing on hoe lef behind b he con nefond oei. The film
juxtaposition of substandard housing with the modern high-ie illae ho he ociall
abject can filter through the cosmetic façade of bourgeois moderni. 216 For the director, the
uncanny proximity between socially abject infraviviendas and the glossy bourgeois high-rises in
Madid Cao Camino neighbohood ceae he efec hoo eing.
De la Iglesia was not alone in merging social critique with horror. Indeed, many Spanish
directors of the period saw the boom in popularity of the horror genre as an opportunity to question

214 Aguilar and de la Iglesia, 110.
215 Montoliú, Enciclopedia de Madrid, 73.
216 Gutiérrez-Albilla, Queering Buñuel, 29. While Gutiérrez-Albilla writes on Li Bel Los
olvidados (1950), set in the context of 1950s Mexico City, the contrasts brought into relief by
modeni neen oge can be identified in urban areas across the globe. Inequality is not
limited to dictatorship-era Spain; it is a global effect of capitalist modernity.

90
and critique the dominant values of Francoism, as exemplified by films such as La novia
ensangrentada (The Blood Spattered Bride, Vicente Aranda, 1972) or Ceremonia sangrienta (The
Legend of Blood Castle, Jorge Grau,217 1972).218 Most Spanish horror films during this period were
transnational productions, as the global genre was cheap to make and easy to export, consumable
both by audiences at home and abroad. La semana del asesino was filmed in both English and
Spanish with an international cast and later redubbed in both languages.
Hoee, nlike Aanda o Ga film, de la Igleia film does not present a generic
setting. Instead, La semana del asesino unfolds in what is recognizably the city of Madrid, although
the particular suburb is not named. Francoist censors resisted the overtly negative depictions of
the suburb and the film suffered massive cuts, leading to two very distinct versions, one for foreign
and one for domestic audiences.219 The ceno objeced no j o he film gahic iolence and
homosexual innuendo, but to its ideological content, which subverted both the traditional values
of Naional Caholicim and he dicaohi moe caialiic aperturista aspirations. 220
According to de la Iglesia, the censors feared the resurgence of the Spanish Black Legend the
idea that Spain had been unfairly characterized as uniquely backward and barbaric in European
historiography. 221

217 Like de la Iglesia, Grau also exposed the problems of the housing crisis. His 1961
documentary short, Ocharcoaga, exposes the dismal living conditions in the shanty towns of
Bilbao. However, the film was produced by the Ministry for Housing and ultimately serves as a
anegic of he dicaohi hoing ojec in he neighbohood of he ame name.
218 Lao Reboll, Maclinidade gneica 174.
219See Gme Mnde, Efeco beio de la eein fo an in -depth analysis of the
differences between the international and domestic versions of the film.
220Censorship was officially lifted in 1977. Despite this, as one of the first directors to explore
the representation of gay men in Spanish cinema, de la Iglesia was subjected to a great deal of
criticism in the press during the transition period. See Smith, Laws of Desire, 130 32 for an
account of this homophobic criticism.
221 Aguilar and de la Iglesia, Conocer a Eloy de la Iglesia, 111.

91
The bb in aicla had long been a hon in he dicaohi ide a they represented
the terrain on which the aforementioned contradictions between the urban and the rural played out,
both literally and metaphorically. The periphery was the site where urban development encroached
on the agricultural and natural landscape, but also the site that exposed the social failures of both
the urban and rural paradigms. Many of those who did not find housing within the city built
shantytowns along the outskirts of Madrid, especially to the south and east of the city. These slums
presented dismal living conditions and lacked basic sanitation or running water, not to mention the
broader lack of public services in these areas. The presence of such shantytowns had been seen by
the regime as a threat to civil order and governability since the early post war period. Indeed, Ruiz
anale o a neae aicle on Red Madid hich ca he eihe of h e city as a
diec hea o he dicaohi. One aicla aicle, iled A Vile Bel, de a connecion
between the shantytowns and the (Republican) crimes of the civil war: As the article describes it,
In hi bel hich ffocae Madid lie mon sters and criminals, the scum of illiterate and
babaic Sain ha hae been eelled fom he conide. Thee infeced bb ae a
coneence of he eakne of failed em. 222 Thus Ruiz argues that the egime material
reconstruction of the cityscape should be ndeood a a of he cleaning of moal and oliical
life. 223
The references to infection construct the peripheral slums as a pathological sickness that
must be extirpated.224 While these shantytowns may have indeed posed public health risks due to

222 Ruiz, Franco’s Justice, 50.
223 Ruiz, 50.
224 This rhetoric is not unique to Francoist Spain. In a 1996 seminar, Jacques Derrida mapped the
concept of hospitality topologically, with an analysis of the banlieues, or suburbs, of Paris.
Drawing attention to the multiple meanings of the word propre (meaning both proper and clean)
in French, Derrida argued that the semantic and discursive relations between the concepts of

92
a lack of sanitation infrastructure, this kind of immunological rhetoric was commonly used by the
dictatorship to describe potentially dangerous ideologies. The language of contagion was prevalent
in Fanco oli tical speeches and in Falangist literature, in which the ideas of communism and
liberal republicanism were construed as a spreading sickness to be forcibly separated from the
body politic.225 These beliefs aligned with broader 20th-century intellectual currents, influenced by
Darwinism, which considered society as a social organism and applied biological laws to it. As
Gaham age, The ie a no longe he bod oliic, b he biological bod of he naion
and the total control thereof. This was the c of Fanco aeg boh ding and afe he
military conflict of 1936-39: the internal colonization of the metropolis, in order to destroy the
alien Reblic naion/cle heein. 226 Hee, he egime e of immnological analog
makes elici he bioolical aim ndeling he dicaohi ban lanning and economic
policy. Indeed, the postwar technocratic state sought to manage the challenge presented by political
enmity in part through the management of space.
In an effort to control the potentially rebellious populations of the shantytowns, the
dictatorship began to launch new urbanization initiatives, starting with the Plan Nacional de
Vivienda in 1955. This plan involved the construction of housing developments that would replace
many of the slums and provide housing for those living in them. The 5,000 new apartments
constructed that year inaugurated eight poblados de absorción (absorption settlements) that would
form new developments such as Valverde, Entrevías, and Carabanchel Bajo. These radial areas

oimi, oie, and conaminaion alloed fo a enohobic aiioning of he enclae,
as a zone that exists outside the city, the nation, and indeed, the law. Deida, Hoiiali, 7.
225 For example the 1938 novel, Una isla en el mar rojo, by Wenceslao Fernández Flores,
decibe Reblican Madid a ffeing fom commni conagion, and ih he aeaance
que antes debían de presentar las ciudades aterradas por un peste (that must have resembled
the cities of old terrorized by the plague), Fernández Flores, Una isla en el mar rojo, 29; 36.
226 Graham, The War and Its Shadow, 116.

93
old conine o go ding Sain fll -scale construction boom in the 1960s and 1970s. To
spur development, the newly created Ministry of Housing provided subsidies to private developers
and relaxed or ignored existing zoning regulations, increasing the amount of buildable land in
Madid eihe, conenienl iaed nea he lage facoie of the ci indial bel. The
development of low income housing thus became very profitable, as developers were able to
cheaply construct on inexpensive land and were not responsible for infrastructure such as paved
roads or street lighting. This eclaie deam of an eal eae deeloe sets the scene for
the stark socioeconomic disparity in La semana del asesino.227
However, in contrast to public housing models in other European countries or in North
Ameica, Sain model mean o elace a edominael enal hoing econom ih one of
homeownership. To this end, the dictatorship promoted a system of mass home ownership through
long-term mortgages, thereby also favoring financial institutions and leading to the financialization
of he econom. A Aene, declaed in 1957, Queremos un país de propietarios, no de
proletarios (We an a con of oieo, no o letariats). These words carry a clear
ideological implication, for the triumph of dictatorship during the Civil War represented the
imh of he landoning clae and he oeho of he oke eolion. 228 Certainly, in a
capitalist system, the ownership of property and more importantly, of real estate represents a
possible escape from poverty and marginalization. But home mortgages also saddled borrowers
with long-term debt obligations and thereby enforced immobility and encouraged ideological
complacency. Thus, as Juliá observes, the regime effectively demobilized the workers revolution
through lifelong home ownership and incorporated the middle class into capitalist enterprise.229 In

227 Luna-García, Ciie of Sain, Localiie on he Edge of an Ideni Beakdon, 378.
228 López Hernández and Rodríguez, Fin de ciclo, 149.
229 Juliá Díaz, Ringrose, and Segura Graíño, Madrid, 456, 458.

94
this context, urban planning becomes a mechanism of biopolitics, or a mode of administering and
regulating populations and subjects.
These poblados de absorción represented largely low-income or working class
neighborhoods and effectively partitioned the city along class lines. As Giorgio Agamben has
argued, such distinctions are a constitutive element of a city. The polis is always constituted on the
bai of an eclion, a he ooe ha [i]n Ween oliic, bae life ha he eclia iilege
of being ha hoe eclion fond he ci of men. 230 In other words, exclusionary practices
undergird the formation of the body politic; in their exceptions these exclusions constitute the rule.
Rening o Gaham conenion ha he dicaohi oa olic amoned o an inenal
colonization of the metropoli, 231 Francoist urban policy could be understood as a form of
colonial reinscription a resurgence of the policing and containment strategies of earlier Spanish
imperial projects. Indeed, Stoler posits the colony as a political concept that is not necessarily tied
o he geogahical and hioical demacaion of he emie, b a modified dilacemen
and amlified eceaion of imeial fomaion. 232 Fo Sole, he colon i a incile of
managed mobilities, mobilizing and immobilizing populations according to a set of changing rules
and hierarchies that orders social kinds: those eligible for recruitment, for resettlement, for
dioal, fo aid, o fo coeced labo and hoe ho ae focibl confined. 233 At the same time,
the colony is tied in a aenaliic dicoe of eci, a [a] feaible a o oec Eoean
ocie and make odcie hoe een a a bden and ocial dange in he making. 234 That is

230 Agamben, Homo Sacer, 12.
231 Graham, The War and Its Shadow, 116.
232 Stoler, Duress, 27.
233 Stoler, 117.
234 Stoler, 83.

95
to say that the colony is primarily a mechanism for exerting control over movement. As a
technology of domination, it is informed by a logic of security.
Refeence o moemen and eci aea again and again in he Fanco egime
dicoe on baniaion and hoing olic. A Richad indicae, Aee [] elicil
ecognied he need o conol all bodie ha moe ihin ace. If hee moemen manage o
ecae ahoi hen ocie old oon find ielf andeing in he ealm of he nknon
[oad] anach. 235 In short, the Franco regime reinscribed colonial logics of domination into
its policies of urban development, collapsing or refiguring the perceived distinctions between
colony and metropolitan contexts. Both spaces were subject to deliberate and concerted
biopolitical efforts that sought to exert control over the circulation of potentially unruly subjects
hogh he eenion of figaie and maeial bondaie. The dicaohi einciion of
these colonial mechanisms of control onto metropolitan Madrid can be understood as a
colonization of eeda life in Lefebe em. A McKenie Wak noe, Lefebe a fom
the observation that the leading strategists of advanced capitalism recognized the futility of
clinging to colonies such as Algeria, and advanced instead a strategy of colonizing everyday life.
Formerly outside the sphere of capitalist social relations, everyday life had become a new site of
boh commodificaion and coneaion. 236

La Semana del asesino and Peripheral Borders

La semana del asesino, is set in the barren, banal landscape of an unnamed peripheral
neighborhood in Madrid. Infrastructure such as paved roads or street lighting is conspicuously

235 Richards, A Time of Silence, 67.
236 Wark, The Beach beneath the Street, 94.

96
absent in the landscape of the film. Instead, the landscape is characterized by the typical large
concrete and brick buildings of the period. As indicated by the title, the story takes place over the
course of a week starting on a Sunday, when the main character Marcos, a factory worker,
accidently kills a taxi driver in self-defense. Marcos then refuses to report the incident to the police
on accon of hi ocial cla. Police on beliee he oo, he a. The ne da, he kill hi
girlfriend, Paula (Emma Cohen), when she insists he turn himself in to the police. He then
subsequently kills someone else each day for the rest of the week, as friends, family members, and
neighbors begin to discover the corpses. The murders seem to progress with a certain detached
faalim. I i a if Maco mdeing ee eeen no o mch a emoa lo o f control,
but instead calls attention to the fact that Marcos lacks any sort of autonomy. His actions are simply
re-actions; he acts out of necessity to preserve his relative freedom.
A he Englih langage aile fo he film decied: The Cannibal Ma n, liing in oda
jngle, kill fo hi feedom. Ceainl, he enaionali omoional maeial fo he film ee
meant to appeal to a horror audience and played up the violent elements of the film at the expense
of he film ocial ciie. Ho ever, the reference to the jungle explicitly ties the urban and the
natural together, evoking the idea of the city as a concrete jungle, a phrase often used to connote
he iolen nae of he ci. The enaional anlaion of he film ile in Engli sh, Cannibal
Man, coeond ih hi idea of he babaic nae of ban life, b i alo efeence Maco
mehod fo geing id of hi icim bodie. Afe he bodie begin o accmlae in he hoe
over the course of several days, Marcos realizes he must find a way to dispose of them. His
gruesome solution is to dismember the corpses and carry them to work in pieces, where he slips
them into a meat processing machine and turns the bodies to broth. The method of disposal
explicitly ties the murde o Maco labo a he indialied laghehoe.

97
The factory itself highlights the tensions between the traditional popular customs of the
countryside and the alienation produced by the modern city. The first scene of the foreign version
of the film opens with a disturbing sequence of cows being slaughtered with mechanized precision
and numbing repetition. The scene is more graphic than any of the murders in the film. Far
removed from the ritualistic slaughter of animals in the village as exemplified by popular matanza
celebrations, the Flory meat processing facility is the product of an industrialized mode of
killing.237 In the factory, labor of slaughter is divided in Fordist fashion so that the cows are killed
and processed by a number of workers who each carry out a specific repetitive task. This scene
and others at the factory clearly present Marcos as an alienated worker. His life consists of little
ele han ok and he eeiie jone o and fom he faco ee da. A Maco bohe
ak him in he film, When ae o going o a enjoing oelf a lile? Fom home o he
faco, fom he faco o home. Indeed, e lean ha he faco i ie lieall a oce of
ocial alienaion a he mo inimae leel a Maco mo ther was killed in a work accident there.
Maco bo cie he deah a he eaon fo hich he ill eceie a omoion o a machine
operating position controlling the same machine he will later use to grind up the bodies of his
rotting victims. Working alone at the meat processing machine, he is alienated not only from the
other workers, but from the product that the company produces.
Even with the help of the efficient machine, Marcos is not able to dispose of the bodies
quickly enough and the growing stench draws swarming flies and neighborhood dogs including
hi neighbo No blldog. The oing bodie ae ie lieall keleon in he cloe,

237 Matanza celebrations are a popular rural tradition surrounding the slaughter of livestock and
the ensuing communal distribution of food. The celebration makes explicit the links between
nutrition, economy, and society, which are obscured in the modern model of industrialized
slaughter. See Labado Mnde, The Cannibal Wae, 245.

98
festering in the shantytown. Marcos must endeavor to conceal the smell in the sweltering heat of
Madid mme. The eaie hea, indeed b he bead of ea on hi foehead, alo ee
to build the psychological pressure within the film. Intensifying the sensation of impending
psychosis, the soundtrack of buzzing flies becomes extradiegetic as it seems to follow Marcos
oide he hoe. Adding o hi enion, de la Igleia laeed ondcae da he maddening
sounds of urbanity into the mix: jet planes and trains punctuate the diegesis and the clock ticks
ominol on Maco all. 238 The murder spree, just as every other event of his life, seems pre-
determined, the logical result of these building modern tensions.
Significantly, the murders originate from the tension between Marcos and his girlfriend a relationship Marcos participates in with the same level of emotional detachment with which he
performs his job. Marcos first (inadvertently) kills a taxi driver who physically assaults Paula for
engaging in what the driver had deemed as an obscene public display of affection with Marcos. In
this altercation Marcos, compelled to fulfill his role as male protector, defends Paula by hitting the
driver with a stone, which leads o he die deah. The next day, Marcos and Paula have
intercourse for the first time, but then he strangles her when she threatens to turn him in to the
police as they embrace in his bed. After killing her, Marcos hides her body underneath the bed as
if to conceal the trace of both the murders and the intercourse. Every subsequent murder occurs to
cover up these initial mde: Maco elcanl kill hi bohe, hi bohe fiance, he fahe,
and the waitress at the neighborhood bar who attempts to seduce him. In an uncanny perversion of

238 De la Iglesia was deliberate in his treatment of the aural dimensions of the film. He claimed he
dubbed the film in order to maintain complete control over the soundtrack. Despite contemporary
sound conventions, he defended this decision in a 1996 interview: Si elo a hace na elcla,
e eeo e , me o a eii mcho a ecindi del doblaje. ecchamo la banda onoa
de foma diina a cmo ecchamo en la ida eal ( If I make a film again, and I hope I do, I am
really going to resist diening ih dbbing e hea ondack in a diffeen a han e
hear real life), Aguilar and de la Iglesia, Conocer a Eloy de la Iglesia ,136.

99
the consummation of the heterosexual relationship and the symbolism of the matrimonial bed,
Maco aange hi bohe and hi fiance bloodied coe on he bed, effeciel
transforming the familiar matrimonial bed into a gruesome death bed.
For Carlos Gómez these mde eeen un rechazo al mecanismo social and a
perversion of modern labor and social conventions.239 But as Andrew Willis and others have
argued, Marcos is also trapped by the strict Franco-era laws and social conventions regarding
eali and maclini, o ha he em he ocialiing oce of Sanih machimo. 240
Willi ie, he film doe no een Maco a a conenionall eil chaace, b inead,
heeoeali and he deie fo e ih omen ae hon a eicion ha ena him. 241
During the dictatorship, homosexuality was considered a crime, punishable by up to five years
imprisonment under the notorious Ley sobre la peligrosidad y reformación social (Law regarding
social dangerousness and reformation).242 The film shows how sexuality is necessarily conditioned
by the la i aea o ange. Tha i, a Smih ighl noe, diciline boh polices and
produces he eioie of homoeal affec. 243 Sexual protocols, and the distribution of affect
and sentiment that they entail, cannot be disentangled from regimes of power.244 It follows that
when homosexuality is criminalized, sexual identity and desire must be expressed clandestinely.
Unbeknownst to Marcos, the murders and his desperate coverup are being watched through
binoculars by his wealthy neighbor Néstor and, through cinematic suture, by the spectator of the
film. The voyeuristic Néstor resides in a nearby high-rise and is both a dyadic foil and a potential

239 Gme Mnde, Efeco beio de la eein, 87.
240 Willi, The Sanih Hoo Film a Sbeie Te, 173.
241 Willis, 171; 172.
242 The text of the law can be found at: https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1970-854
(accessed 20 February 2020).
243 Smith, Laws of Desire, 10.
244 Foucault, The History of Sexuality.

100
romantic partner for Marcos. Although they represent different ends of the socio-economic
spectrum, both are victims of oppression, alienation, and marginalization. The two characters
represent two sides of the same coin. As Carlos Losilla has argued:
Parra [Marcos], en resumen, es el producto defectuoso de unas estructuras sociales
que lo han condenado a una vida que le resulta inaceptable: soledad, monotonía
laboal, incomnicacin amooa Peo ambin Poncela [No], el obe -niño-
ico de la fbla, ie al magen de la nomalidad: oeimo, deeo
reprimidos, indefinible angst Ambo, en fin, aunque bajo distintas máscaras, son
el resultado de una misma situación. 245

In short, Parra [Marcos] is the defective product of social structures that have
condemned him to a life that is unacceptable to him: loneliness, workplace
monoon, iolaion fom loe B Poncela [No], he oied oo -rich boy,
also lives on the magin of nomali: oeim, eeed deie, ndefinable
ang Boh, in he end, alhogh nde diffeen gie, ae he el of he ame
situation.

Yet Marcos and Néstor experience oppression differently due to the pronounced differences in
their social class.
Marcos and Néstor are not social equals. The opposing high and low positions of each
character presented in the opening sequence reflect the pronounced social incongruities of late-
Francoist Madrid, calling particular attention to the stark divide between the bourgeois and
working classes. These distinctions are particularly well-defined in the film through both narrative
and dialogue, but also through visual language as seen in the shot composition of the credit
sequence. In this case, the sightlines were carefully planned. The set designer Santiago Otañón
created the shack in an empty lot expressly for these corresponding high and low angle shots.246
These narrative and formal juxtapositions of development and underdevelopment in the film are
meant to draw attention to those who have been left at the margins of the uneven progress promoted

245 Loilla, En lo l ímite de la ealidad, 51.
246 Aguilar and de la Iglesia, Conocer a Eloy de la Iglesia, 114.

101
by the Franco regime.247
Once we are allowed an interior view of Nésto aamen, e become aae ha i i in
all a he ooie of Maco claohobic, dilaidaed hoe. Aide fom he eanie
anoic ie, No home i fnihed ih ignifie of good ae and high cla. In he
living room, modern art and stylish furniture mix with the traditional trappings of wealth such as
ile lae, fine cal, and old famil oai. The all dco in Maco home, on he ohe
hand, consists of a loudly ticking clock (which recalls the ticking clock at the factory), a set of
hanging metal tools (to emphasize that Marcos performs physical labor these also double as
mde eaon), and in oe (o ho Maco poor taste and retrograde masculinity). Far
from the fantasy of the middle-class bachelor ad died b Pamela Wojcik, in to which the
aeage male can ee hi idealied elf efleced, 248 Maco aamen i habb and daed.
No aamen, on he ohe hand, een an idealied and macline aeheic of ode. In
every way, Néstor inhabits the space of high culture, and Marcos that of the low, their spatial
stratification mirroring their social class. Yet the juxtaposition of these viewpoints represents not
just a contrast between high and low class, but modernity and tradition. Simila o de la Igleia
later 1977 film, Los placeres ocultos, homosexuality represented by the figure of Néstor could
be ead a he eence of moden, ecla ocie in ooiion o he old Sain of famil and
eligion. 249

247 This would not be the last time that de la Iglesia relied on the built environment of Madrid to
illustrate socioeconomic divisions. His 1984 film, Colegas (Pals), prominently featured the social
housing building known as La Colmena o baa, cai meaficamene, la oein de lo
eonaje (to underscore, almost metaphorically, the oppression of the characters). Aguilar and
de la Iglesia, 151.
248 Wojcik, The Apartment Plot, 91.
249 Smith, Laws of Desire, 139.

102
With the privileged view from above, Néstor inhabits the position of the voyeur. Indeed,
he takes pleasure in what he sees and begins to stage encounters with Marcos. But voyeurism is
more than just a manifestation of scopic desire. In de Ceea fomlaion, he oe obain a
whole and totalizing view of the city from an elevated, god-like position that transforms the world
ino a e ha lie befoe one ee. 250 Fo de Ceea, hi oiion i an ealaion of a coic
and gnoic die. 251 In other words, the voyeur practices a totalizing visualization that allows
him to seize information and order it into knowledge, for it is only when one possesses the legend
that the city becomes legible. While one might intuit the boundaries at ground level and indeed,
Benjamin describes the sensation of crossing the boundary as stepping into a void252 the view
from above allows one to grasp the way in which boundaries structure and divide the city. The
oe ie conain a caogahic imle ha boh ialie and incibe the boundaries of
the city, and, in doing so it inscribes urban subjects within a particular space.

Walking and Mapmaking
Although the subjects below do not look back, this is not to say that they do not have a part to play
in cing he ci. In ooiion o he oe, de Ceea oi he alke, an odina
aciione ha lie don belo. 253 De Ceea da dic positions represent the divisions of
eecie and oe ha define he bjec eeience of he ci. Hoee, fo he bjec
who occupies the position of the voyeur, the god-like or totalizing perspective is only an illusion

250 de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 92.
251 de Certeau, 92.
252 [A] ne ecinc begin like a e ino he oid as though one had unexpectedly
cleared a low step on a flight of stairs, Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 88.
253 de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 93.

103
of power, as it is only a matter of relative position that transforms a pedestrian into a visionary.254
This is what Georges Bataille calls an Icarian view, a flyover of the city that entails no small
measure of hubris.255 Fo, in line ih Nichola Mioeff comle of iali o Focal
panopticism, the power of the voyeur lies not with the individual, but in a discursive structure that
classifies, separates, and aestheticizes.256 Thi i o a ha he oe e spective does not
necessarily invest power in the individuals looking, but in the structures of seeing and being seen.
Indeed, the view from above and the view from below are able to slip into each other through the
extreme zoom of a telephoto lens. Thus for Mirzoeff, counter visualityha he em he igh
o look is not simply looking back, or a reverse shot. This would simply re-authorize authority
and re-incibe a hegemonic oiion. Inead, he igh o look i a claim of aonom, he claim
to a oliical bjecii. 257
In he ame a, he acice of alking elde he oe hegemonic dicie
structure without being outside of it. Walking is an enunciative, poetic practice that writes with
and within the established panoptic language of city planning. Free movement challenges the
ace of iae oe, i cone Aee landcae of propietarios. And through their
andeing ajecoie, he alke bodie ie he e iho being able o ead i, e -inscribing
boundaries, b alo coing hem. De Ceea conine, he long oem of alking manilae
spatial organizations, no matter how panoptic they may be: it is neither foreign to them (it can take
place only within them) nor in conformity with them (it does not receie i ideni fom hem). 258
Walking is also a mode of looking, but one that destabilizes the totalizing nature of voyeurism or

254 de Certeau, 92.
255 Bataille, Vision of Excess, 34.
256 Mirzoeff, The Right to Look, 4.
257 Mirzoeff, 1.
258 de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 101.

104
panopticism. Although it is not necessarily deliberate, walking is creative and productive, slipping
the poetics of the everyday onto the urban map.
In La semana del asesino, the urban map develops through cruising, as a sort of furtive and
uncertain poem of desire and phantasy. Marcos and Néstor meet in the undeveloped area between
the slum and the high-rises, where their walks trace the intersection of their respective
neighborhoods. Néstor first stages a meeting with Marcos by allowing his dog (which is,
ggeiel, in hea) o oam in he em lo beide Maco hoe. While he oeealo
censorship of the film has left most of the relationship that develops between the characters to be
inferred by the spectator, the film still allows for suggestive readings in this regard. Ultimately,
Maco and No elaionhi deelo hogh hee meeing in a liminal ace; their
intimacy can be read in the lines traced by their movements. This daily (or nightly) pedestrian
movement is also an important way of reterritorializing space. In other words, cruising is
generative, providing a mode of signification through movement and affect. In this context,
cruising rewrites the urban geography to posit a space of meeting. For Diane Chisholm, this is a
ee ace, o an aoiaion of ace fo bodil, eeciall eal, leae. 259
In many ways, both characters face a form of discrimination. Certainly, their identity and
sexuality is conditioned by the repressive laws and social mores of late-Francoism. Their cruising
circulation is an illicit act, and necessarily takes place in marginalized parts of the city and at night.
In the absence of a safe meeting place during the dictatorship, queer space was not necessarily a
physical space, but instead an ambiente or atmosphere structured through coded social
intercourse.260 Cruising implies a pleasure-seeking drift through these spaces and an interested

259 Chisholm, Queer Constellations, 10.
260 Robbins, Crossing through Chueca, 7.

105
willingness to read or decipher the coded language of desire. In the film, Marcos and Néstor
wander through the marginalized space of the periphery. A long traveling shot films them walking
towards the camera and captures a deep conversation regarding work and social expectations.
Maco and No oiion eem momenail inechangeable in hi eence, a he ai i
backlit and their faces are obscured by shadows and cigarette smoke. In the logic of cruising,
Marcos and Nésto aified oiion ae, in fac, flid.
However, in an illustration of the uneven nature of discrimination, Néstor enjoys a freedom
of movement that Marcos does not have. He owns a sports car and moves freely throughout the
city, even traveling to the beach when he desires. Furthermore, his movements are not policed,
whereas Marcos is always under surveillance. Subject to the structures of containment and control
that condition the space of the periphery, Marcos must show his identification to the Francoist
authorities who take note of his movements. Néstor, on the other hand identifies himself to the
authorities as a resident of the high rises (and hence a member of the mobile middle class) and is
not required to produce identification documents. While his sexuality may expose him to
discrimination and violence, his social class affords him the privilege of movement. Marcos thus
experiences discrimination in ways that are both similar to and different than Néstor. As Crenshaw
argues, discrimination is no eeaed along a ingle -ai fameok, b i fel b o aing
degee baed on a bjec elaie ideni oiion. 261
A precursor to de Certeau, Benjamin also developed a critical practice of wandering, as
exemplified by his well-known figure of the flâneur, which he drew from the poetry of Charles
Baudelaire. The flâneur experiences the modern city as an observant pedestrian, driven by
unconscious desire and heedless of prescribed paths. Hoee, Benjamin flne i neceail

261 Cenha, Demaginaliing he Ineecion of Race and Se, 139.

106
a bourgeois man, with the relative freedom and luxury of leisure time. Marcos experiences such
freedom of movement fleetingly, and when in the company of Néstor. For example, Néstor takes
him for a nighttime swim at the country club, a restricted space where Marcos would not likely be
admitted during daytime hours. 262 Driven by desire, the flâneur also often crosses borders, a
process that Benjamin describes as shocking or unsettling. The walker is caught off-balance,
disoriented, out of sorts like Marcos stepping off of the high dive at the country club pool.
Through their late night wanderings, Néstor and Marcos cruise and cross the geographic
boundaries of their respective neighborhoods, the social boundaries of economic class, and push
against the strict sexual and moral boundaries of the repressive dictatorship and National
Catholicism. Their walks are unhurried and undisciplined, usually with no explicit destination.
Unlike the moe oaliing caogahic eecie of he oe, he alke
eecie can eoe he angled eb of ineecing ideniie. Ye Benjamin flne i aloof
and observes the city in a detached manner; he walks with the privilege of bourgeois leisure. Thus
Dianne Chiholm elaboae Benjamin fige o ooe a ciing flne ha, mch like he
claical flne, oll ih a deie ha he ci i elf has induced with its intoxicating
omenade of commodiie. 263 Ye, a Chiholm conine, nlike he claical flne fo hom
hee i no objec, he ciing flne i on he olook fo loe. 264 Cruising is driven by both
desire and abandon, a yield to the amorous encounter. Yet, cruising is also generative, providing a
mode of signification through movement and affect. Similarly, the language of cinema is a

262 Thi cene a heail c b he ceno, illaing he a ha he chaace moemen
ee cicmcibed no j b he film physical settings, but by the socio-historical context in
which it was produced. The international version of this scene is longer, and charged with sexual
tension. The pair play with a ball together in the pool and exchange meaningful glances, with a
number of ndeae ho ha accenae he men ahleic neal -naked bodies.
263 Chisholm, Queer Constellations, 46.
264 Chisholm, Queer Constellations, 46.

107
language of motion and emotion. The tracking shots in La semana del asesino allow the viewer to
ene he ban enionmen a he iall ael hogh i. The film, in eence, conc
an affective map by overlaying subjective experience on the urban grid. Driven by phantasy and
deie, he ee gae of de la Igleia camea cie s and crosses the borders of the periphery
and exposes its points of intersection.
Thi cinemaic ciing demonae ha cinema caogahic endencie need no
ala be coloed b he imle o cone o b he langage of oe. 265 Instead, the daily
(or nightly) movement of the cruising pedestrian provides a way to reterritorialize urban space.
Fo ciing ceae ma ha ae aned o he ci micohioie of deai and deie; i can
create queer spaces of intersectional contact across grids of power structured by sexuality, class,
or identity. In this context, cruising rewrites the urban geography to posit a non-concrete queer
space, an ambiente ha ei a a oeniali. Fo Jo Mo ciing i no onl o een
imail c iing fo e, b inead fncion a a necea [mode] of eing o of hi
lace and ime o omehing flle, ae, moe enal, and bighe. 266 In this context, cruising
becomes a utopian practice that insists on the possibility for anothe old. The film construction
of ee ace heefoe ha a oian dimenion in ha i ojec a ace beond he film igid
present. While La semana del asesino i fa fom idealiic, i confom ih Mo Blochian
formulation of utopia as an inience on omehing ele, omehing bee, omehing
daning. 267

265 Bruno, Atlas of Emotion, 268.
266 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 18; 189.
267 Muñoz, 189.

108
According to Muñoz, utopia has both a positive and future-oriented valence and contains
the negative function of critique.268 That is, in positing a better space beyond the present, utopias
inherently critique the here and now. La semana del asesino’s queer aesthetic is indeed imbued
ih ch oian oeniali. In acing an ineecional ma hogh Madid eihe, i
posits a space beyond the overdetermined boundaries of the film een hile eening a
critique of the limits and barriers of Francoist modernity. Of course the space of utopia necessarily
exists only as a potentiality; and, as I outline in the coming chapters, many of the limits and barriers
of Francoist modernity would be reinscribed into the spaces of the democracy. Ultimately, the
film oian ojecion i foecloed hen Maco n himelf in o he olice and eoe
himself to the death penalty. This ending, which de la Iglesia frankly describes a id, a
imposed by the Francoist censor.269 In this sense, utopia is always only an abstraction, negated by
the current reality. Still, the film boldly hints at openings in censorship and a queering of the
cinema to come, as explored in the next chae. A Mo obee, ee old -making . . .
hinges on the possibility to map a world where one is allowed to cast such pictures of utopia and
o inclde ch ice in an ma of he ocial. 270 Cinema provides a tool to imagine such a
map where borders erode, to imagine a map that includes utopia.271

268 Muñoz, 125.
269 Aguilar and de la Iglesia, Conocer a Eloy de la Iglesia, 111.
270 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 39.
271 Muñoz, 18. Muñoz builds on Oca Wilde famo oaion , A ma of he old ha doe
no inclde Uoia i no oh glancing a.

109

Chapter 3
Mapping La Movida:
Movement and Politics in the Early Films of Pedro Almodóvar

In he end, if e o en o he oigin, e do no e kno ha democracy will
have meant nor what democracy is. For democracy does not present itself; it has not
eened ielf, b ha ill come. We do no e kno ha e hae inheied.

Jacques Derrida, Rogues

Introduction

Spain held its first democratic elections in 1977 and ratified its constitution in 1978. Although it
was largely celebrated as a democratic triumph and seen as a model for the peaceful transition of
authoritarian regimes worldwide,272 Sain aniion o democac a laged b iolence and
nceain. In he ea folloing Fanco deah, he con lied an eended eiod of oliical
uncertainty as it faced an economic recession, a series of mass strikes and demonstrations, and
repeated terrorist attacks perpetrated by the extreme right, the Basque nationalist organization
ETA, and the anti-faci go GRAPO. The 1981 Tejeo co da i idel ieed a he
culminating moment of the uncertainty of the transition period.
The so-called Tejerazo occurred just after 6 p.m. on the evening of February 23, 1981,
when Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero burst into Spanish congress to interrupt the investiture
vote of Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as Prime Minister. Tejero was accompanied by a group of 200 civil
gadmen amed ih machine gn. Wih he od, Qieo odo el mndo! (Nobody move!),
the Lieutenant fired shots into the air and proceeded to hold the politicians and members of the
press hostage while he waited for the military support he had supposedly been promised. However,

272 Muro and Alonso, The Politics and Memory of Democratic Transition.

110
after several hours the necessary support for the coup failed to materialize, indicating a lack of
consensus among military leaders. Finally, at approximately 1:00 am on February 24, King Juan
Carlos gave a televised speech dressed in his uniform as Capitan General of the Armed Forces and
commanded the military to step down. The Crown, he declared, would not tolerate the interruption
of he democaic oce of Sain ecenl -established constitution.273 The fact that the King who had been installed by Franco himself broke with the Francoist old guard represented a
turning point in the transition. As Vilarós has argued, the failed coup finally consolidated the
noion of Sain democa cy in the national consciousness.274 Spain had changed. Francoism, it
seemed, had finally been laid to rest.
In the subsequent 1982 elections, the anti-Francoist Socialist Workers Party, PSOE,
secured an overwhelming majority. This was the first time the opposition had gained a ruling
majority in government. The party would continue to hold power in parliament for the next decade.
On he da of he hioic 1982 elecion PSOE ice eiden of goenmen, Alfono Gea
omied, Vamos a dejar el país que no la va a reconocer ni la madre que la parió (We ae going
to leave this country in such a state that not even its own mother will recognize it).275 While there
was no root and branch renovation of the government and its institutions, the transition brought
political change that was unimaginable under Franco: the centralized Spanish state was
restructured into seventeen autonomous communities, political parties were legalized, and free
elections were instituted. In addition to these political changes, a series of social and cultural shifts
efiged Sain image. A Maha Kinde ha hon, media laed a ccial ole in hi oce

273 The King eleied adde i aailable on he RTVE achie a:
https://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/fue-noticia-en-el-archivo-de-rtve/archivo-mensaje-del-rey-
juan-carlos-tras-intentona-golpista-del-23/393739/ (accessed on 18 April 2020).
274 Vilarós, El mono del desencanto, 2.
275 Mengal, Ae ho.

111
of national re-identification, namely through the recuperation historical narratives and the
reinscription of a liberated, mobile sexuality.276
Censorship of the media was lifted by royal decree in 1977, stimulating an anything-goes
destape, or uncovering, and resulting in a surge of erotic and quasi-pornographic media
materials.277 While arguably cultural change had begun befoe Fanco deah and cenohi
continued into the 1980s,278 the increase and availability of libidinal cultural production would
have scandalized the conservative Francoist morality that had shaped the media just a few years
prior. It was in the context of this transitional exuberance and new-found social liberty that the
cultural phenomenon known as la movida madrileña emeged in he naion caial. Alhogh
there were various so-called movidas throughout the Spanish state in cities such as Valencia, Vigo,
and Barcelona, the movida in Madrid was the most meticulously documented and has subsequently
received the most scholarly attention.279 The movida began as an underground cultural movement
in the late 1970s, but it was soon coopted by the cultural institutions of the democratic government
a i came o eiomie change and he eceied aial of modeni in o -Fanco Sain. 280
Indeed, the movida is often seen as a point of cultural rupture with Francoism. At the same time,
the movida oliical legacy remains somewhat ambivalent and it has often been criticized for its
lack of political engagement, as I discuss below.

276 Kinde, Refiging Sociali Sain, 3.
277 E and Kakodaki, Inodcion, 9.
278 While censorship was officially lifted, the Ministry of Culture was still enforced a de facto
cenohi b eoking ceening emiion, a i did ih Pila Mi 1 980 film, El crimen
de Cuenca (The Crime of Cuenca).
279 See the collection edited by H. Rosi Song and William Nichols for a fine introduction to the
scholarship on the movida. Song and Nichols, Toward a Cultural Archive of La Movida.
280 Song and Nichol, Back o he Fe, i.

112
As cultural historian Hamilton Stapell ha noed, almo eehing abo he moemen
was the opposite of the Franco regime: new vs. old, open vs. closed, night vs. day, promiscuity vs.
chai, colo . gene and ola . elie. 281 Thus as a perceived site of rebellion against
Francoim longanding clal moe, he moida madilea ha been obeiel
memorialized by commercial interests and cultural institutions which present it as the foundational
clal moemen in Sain ne democac. Thi aenion ha led he moida to become, in the
words of Santiago Fouz-Hennde, a lo golden age and a ong ie of noalgia boh fo
those who lived through it and younger generations.282 In this sense, the movida can be understood
as a lieux de mémoire fo Sain ne democa cy. That is, just as the Valley of the Fallen or the
suburban housing analyzed in previous chapters functioned as foundations from which the
dictatorship materialized memory and ideology, the movida served as a key site from which the
democracy could construct its own cultural legacy. However, while aesthetics of the movida could
be read as oppositional to those of the regime in many ways, they also reinscribed many of the
egime ocial bondaie and territories of affect.
Thus, as one of the most emblematic cultural sites of the Spanish transition and the
immediate post-Franco period, the movida demands further attention for the ways in which it is
understood to epitomize cultural change. That is, how did a supposedly apolitical cultural
moemen emake Madid? 283 To eloe hi eion, I n o Pedo Almoda fi o
films: Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (Pepi, Luci, Bom, and Other Girls Like Mom,
1980) and Laberinto de pasión (Labyrinth of Passion, 1982). According to Mark Allinson, these

281 Saell, J a Teado in he Rain?, 365.
282 Fouz-Hennde, Me cuesta tanto olvidae, 167.
283 Saell, J a Teado in he Rain?

113
fi o film eeen he geae clal legac of he moida. 284 Indeed, he eflec Sain
embrace of postmodern values and aesthetics in the transition era and present Madrid as a scene
of cultural progress. In m anali, I a aicla aenion o he a in hich Almoda
eal film docmen hi moemen and ma he ace of Sain changing caial. A ooed
to the earlier representations of circumscribed spaces implied in Franco-era films such films as La
semana del asesino, studied in the previous chapter, the multi-directional movement in
Almoda film cold be ead an oimiic fige fo social progress in the post-Franco era.
Almoda fa -aced film ma he chaace conan moeme n hogho Madid ban
spaces by car, bus, and foot. Their trajectories gesture towards new possibilities for gender and
sexual expression and a potential for economic mobility. At the same time however, Almoda
cinematic debut maps the ambivalent cultural politics of the movida period and reflects the ways
in hich he nacen democac a bjec o man of he conainmen meae of Sain
authoritarian past. These films eflec ho he egime endencie eincibed hemele ino he
spaces and perspectives of the democracy.

La Movida: Scenes, Happenings, Movements
The movida madilea ha been anlaed o Englih a he Madid cene, haening, o
moemen. 285 While I will avoid imposing a particular term here, I draw attention to the
aiaion in anlaion becae he eflec a eb of he moida mo defining ch aracteristics.
A Bad E and Deina Kakodaki noe, he moida madilea i lile moe han a laceholde
fo a congeie of ac and aciiie hich anged fom mic and efomance a, o comic

284 Allinson, A Spanish Labyrinth, 16.
285 Alenae anlaion fo he lang em moida alo inclde a dg deal.

114
books and magazines, to films and advertising.286 It had no manifesto and was comprised of an
array of overlapping groups and genres from punk to pop, mod to rock, and new-wave. In the
absence of a defining style, it came to be defined by the particular scene or setting for a wide range
of cultural expression. That is, place was a central factor in the formation of the movement. As
Christine Henseler argues, to understand the movida one must remember that it emerged around
and ihin a eie of ba and clb hee ong eole cold mee, lien o mic , dance,
efom, ehibi, ach ideo and film, and aboe all, make o. 287 Venues like Rock-Ola
(hich feaed in Almoda Laberinto), La Vía Láctea, and El Sol provided a scene for the
performances and parties of madrileños eager to celebrate as concerts and shows took to the stage.
As Stapell points out, even this emphasis on nightlife can be seen as a reaction to the mores of the
dicaohi, in hich nocnal cle ood ooie o he emhai on adminiaie and
functionary daylight acii of he fome egime. 288
Ye he moida age eended beond clb and ba and ino he ee; i a inimael
tied to urban public space, with the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, the terrazas (patios) along the Paseo
de la Castellana, and the Rastro forming some of the main public scenes. This return to public
space coincided with the efforts of the socialist mayor Enrique Tierno Galván and other leftist
politicians to return madrileños to the streets to claim their right to the city. As Susan Larson writes,
the Urban Plan of 1983 conceived of Madrid as a new socialist capital that was radically different
from the Francoist city, which, as described in the second chapter, had been increasingly overtaken
by speculation and private development.289 The plan was utopian, informed by the values of social

286 E and Kakodaki, Inodcion, 7 8.
287 Henele, In/Aheniciie, 64.
288 Saell, J a Teado in he Rain?, 365.
289 Laon, Achiece, Ubanim, and La Moida Madilea, 169.

115
and economic justice and ecological sustainability.290 While the plan would never be fully realized
under Galn tenure, some of its most innovative recommendations for example, the limitation
of private cars in the city center were implemented later under the socialist municipal
government of the 2000s. Still, the 1983 plan entailed a vibrant public reclaiming of the city,
capturing the spirit of the movida. In this way, the plan illustrates how the initially underground
movement was adopted into the mainstream political and cultural institutions, which aimed to
omoe ne fom of democaic affiliaion in ode o efahion he caial fo he ne
democracy.291
For the municipal Socialist politicians who came into power in Madrid in the late 1970s
and early 1980s, the cultural refashioning of the capital went hand in hand with the building of
infrastructure and the restoration of public works. These leaders also considered their projects as
antithetical to the Francoist past, and thus rejected the traditional local customs of Madrid that had
been tainted by Francoism. The movida conveniently provided a new set of cultural symbols for
this project of resignification. As Stapell has shown, the promotion of the Movida by these
politicians was intended to create a modern, participatory, and inclusive democratic identity in
Sain caial. The moida, in effec, oided he fondaion fo a ne official cl ural image,
o clal ideni one that promoted new cultural practices and new social associations.292
A Saell oin o, he moida a no abo iing idl aond in cafe and ba;
Inead, i a abo aiciaion and moemen thus the tem moida. 293 The movida can

290 Larson, 170.
291 Saell, J a Teado in h e Rain?, 347.
292 Stapell, 356.
293 Stapell, 361.

116
thus be understood as movement, not in terms of political mobilization, but in terms of motion.294
The participants of the movida moved freely throughout the different zones of the city, but the
movida-as-movement also entailed a certain fluidity of social class and sexual expression. The
logan of Madi magaine, lanched in 1984, Vmono e no amo (Le go, ee
leaving) caed hi doble ii of moion. The logan edndanc emhaie foad
motion; it is at once a metaphorical movement that leaves behind the past, and a literal movement
as the youth culture moved freely between these physical and social spaces. Movement in this
econd ene i cenal o Henele definiion of he moida a he e of mbol, eeience,
and ideas advanced by a youth constantly in motion. 295 She decibe a oh cle [ha]
walked the streets, bars and clubs of the 1970 and 1980 and ha eied an ai, eole,
o finali and oaed, aboe all ele, a oh in aniion. 296 In the context of post-Franco
Spain, the emphasis on motion and movement could be understood as a response to the
claustrophobic dictatorship years. As Richards argues, the years of dictatorship amounted to a
cloe of geogahical ace, in a naional and local ene. 297 After the transition, social spaces
were no longer subject to the same forms of containment described in chapter two. Indeed, free
movement was a constitutional right in the democracy. This opening of space in the post-Franco
eiod haed he moida a a flid henomenon of conadico conegence. 298
The moida ha alo been anlaed a a haening, caing he moemen emhai
on the present. Indeed, the Madrid happening represented a large range of cultural expression
294 A Tiana Toibio oin o, moida i alo a defian langih n on he Fancoi
Movimiento, hi ch was the term used to describe the ideological elements of the Franco
regime, Tiana Toibio, A Pnk Called Pedo, 275.
295 Henele, In/Aheniciie, 60.
296 Henseler, 60, emphasis mine.
297 Richards, A Time of Silence, 67.
298 Henele, In/Aheniciie, 70.

117
much of which was ephemeral due to the central role played by periodical media forms such as
the Luna de Madrid and Madriz magazines that published much of the writing of the movida. Live
mic and dag efomance alo fomed a lage a of ea clal odcion. 299 The ontology
of such live performance is fundamentally present-oriented; as a non-reproductive art form,
performance exists only in the present moment. Yet not all forms of art and expression produced
during the movida years were performative. Pedro Almodóvar has remained as one of the
maimm eonen of he eiod in a becae he dieco ok olied he haenin g
presentism; his early films serve as a document and archive of a largely fleeting cultural moment.
In efomance heoi Pegg Phelan em, film, hoogah, and iing ae
reproductive media in that they endlessly reproduce their content.300 These media have an archival
fncion ha eeaedl en he a ino he een. Man of Almoda eal film,
including those studied here, archived performance in that they recorded live performances by
artists from the movida such as Alaska and Caca de luxe (in the case of Pepi, Luci, Bom) or
Almodóvar himself performing with Fabio McNamara (in the case of Laberinto). Yet, in an
illaion of ha Phelan call he efomaie ali of all eeing , 301 Almoda film
exist in both a performative and an archival economy. Cinema archives performance, but the
ecao ac of ieing he film alo ha a efomaie ali especially so with

299 Another reason for the ephemerality of the movida lies in its own excesses with the
prevalence of heroin use. Coupled with the emerging AIDS epidemic, heroin addiction led to the
premature death of many of the cultural figures of this period. In fact, heroin-related death was
o ideead ha Gemn Labado Mnde efeed o he heoin eidemic a obaining he
volume and dimension of an involuntary genocide. Thi eidemic had he effec of eaing a
large part of the first generation of the Spanish democracy and as a result that many of their
cultural contributions were not adopted into the cannon, Labrador Méndez, Letras arrebatadas,
119; 145.
300 Phelan, Unmarked, 146.
301 Phelan, 147.

118
Almoda fi o film , which played for years at midnigh hoing in Madid Alhaille
cinema. Going to see the films became a performative event, or a happening, of the movida. At
the same time however, the films archived the movida itself as a performative moment by
consigning it to celluloid. In this archival gesture, the films locate the politics of their performance
elsewhere, in the future. For, following Derrida, the political question of the archive is a response
o he a and a omie and a eonibili fo omoo. 302
The movida has often been criticized for its perceived frivolity and apolitical nature that
privileged present-oriented cultural expression over an assessment of the Francoist past.
Almoda olemical claim ha he made film a if Fanco nee eied i ed o o ch
ciicim and o illae he dieco oedl aoliical ance. 303 However, this assessment
relies on a narrow view of the political understood as an ideological division, which, in the case of
Sain aniion, i edced o he oliical an tagonism between the former Francoist right and
the anti-Franco left. Yet, as Vilarós notes, without the figure of Franco to animate these
antagonisms, this dialectic quickly became obsolete and necessitated a shift in political attitudes.304
Manuel Vázquez Monalbn onge -in-cheek adage contra Franco estábamos mejor ( we lived
better against Franco) encapsulates the experience of the dictatorship-era left as they recognized
their own obsoletion.305 To paraphrase Vilarós, it was therefore determined that if Franco could
not be resuscitated, the only productive way forward would be to forget about him and to lay these
antagonisms to rest.306 In hi a, Almoda aemen aea o align ih he hif in he
attitudes of the political establishment which were codified in the 1977 Pact of Oblivion analyzed

302 Derrida, Archive Fever, 36.
303 See Adrián Pérez Melgosa for an analysis of the debate The Ehic of Obliio n, 178.
304 Vilarós, El mono del desencanto, 67.
305 Ve Monalbn, Cona Fanco Ebamo Mejo.
306 Vilarós, El mono del desencanto, 74.

119
in Chapter One.307 The failed Tejero coup seemed to once and for all consign the traditional
Fancoi a an anachonim in Sain democac.
However, this is not to say that such political divisions disappeared. Rather, for the
participants of the movida, the conflicts surrounding Franco legac ee idel een a an ie
of the previous generation. As Song describes it, the youth of the transition period were caught
beeen he deie of he o olde geneaion: he geneaion of he ciil a, hich aned
to forget the past and elcomed a ne democaic Sain ih a minimm of heaal, and he
geneaion of oliical acii nde Fancoim, hich deied a change in he con oliical
iniion aboe all ele. 308 The movida remained outside of such transition-era political projects
and did no align ih an official a oiion. While he moemen eeened a joo and
sometimes self-indlgen ejecion of oliical coneaim on he igh, i ceainl did no align
ih he adiional lef, o oge, ch a Felie Gonle o Jan Li Cebin eihe. 309
Moving beyond conceptions of the political that center on a clear right/left binary or on
ic a em, i i eha moe efl o hink of he moida in em of a oliic of
frivolity, a Jo Li Galleo ha ggeed, folloing Ah Schoenae definiion of
frivolity as someone who lives too much in the present.310 Gallero argues that the unifying element
in the heterogenous cultural scene of the movida was a certain insistence on living in the present.
In a similar vein, Vali idenifie a elenle inience on he een in the movida, marked by
he moemen hedonim, anach, and aeheicim. 311 This refusal or negation of the past points

307 The cultural production of the movida did not necessarily eschew the symbolism of the recent
past. As analyzed in Chapter One, the art collective Costus produced paintings of the Valley of
the Fallen and stylized portraits of Carmen Polo and Francisco Franco, which I analyze below.
308 Song, Lost in Transition, 8.
309 Saell, J a Teado in he Rain?, 362.
310 Gallero, Sólo se vive una vez, 21.
311 Valis, The Culture of Cursilería, 282.

120
to a moment of rupture with the dicaohi, hich Vali chaaceie limael a a faile of
eoling he a ih he een. 312 While the politics of the movida cannot be thought in terms
of an anagoniic ggle beeen o ide, he moemen foc on he een ce rtainly
enail a ejecion o negaion of he a ha i conien ih he moida omoden clal
cone. Hoee, he moida oliic of fioli and inience on he een cold alo be
read as an attempt to escape both the Francoist past and as a ejecion of Fancoim
reformulations in an anticipated techno-statist future. In this sense, the movida uncouples the ideal
of democracy from the state, rejecting the inheritance of the Spanish transition. As such,
democracy is located not in the political divisions of the Spanish transition or the representative
structures of the parliamentary monarchy that the constitution brought into being, but elsewhere,
as a Derridean politics to come.
Mobile Women in La Movida: Pepi, Luci, Bom
Filmed beeen 1978 and 1980, Almoda fi feae film deelo a caogah of he
moida in he moemen ealie ea. I i a jone in and aond Madid, hogh he ci
open spaces and its private bars, clubs and homes. Pepi, Luci, Bom begins with a panning survey
ho ha i in man a imila o he caogahic oening eence of de la Igleia La
semana del asesino. In hi fi eence of Almoda film, the camera looks out from the
oagoni Pei balcon and an o gi ve the viewer an establishing perspective of the
neighbohood. Hoee, inead of he oaliing caogah oided b he bid -eye view in
La semana del asesino, he camea maing in Pepi, Luci, Bom is closer and more horizontal
[Fig. 4.1]. The buildings across the street are of equal size, which narrows the visual field and

312 Valis, 282.

121
block an eanie, anoic ie. Unlike he oening eence in Elo de la Igleia film,
Almoda camea doe no egie a ocioeconomic diide. The neighbo hee a e on equal
footing with this horizontal one might say, democratic mapping. Nevertheless, as the camera
focuses on the white facade of the apartment building across the street and pans over the open
indo of Pei neighbo, i become clea ha he ga es of neighbors can still traverse
private space. In this horizontal, democratic space, the supposedly private apartments are still
oo and emeable. 313

Fig. 4.1: The ie fom Pei balcon, ih he maijana lan in he foegond.
The opening sequence continues as the camera draws back, zooming out to perform a
micro-caogah of Pei aamen in one conino ho. Pei aamen i locaed in one
of Madid middle cla diic, and he cinemaic caaloging of he home gge hat Pepi
(played by Carmen Maura) is modern, middle-class, and care-free.314 First, the camera reveals a

313 Wojcik, The Apartment Plot, 77.
314 Pei aamen, locaed on calle Doco Eedo, a he eal -life apartment of the artist
Blanca Sánchez, a good friend of Almodóvar. Both he aamen in he film, Co and
Sanche, ee he moada of the movida, through which a great many of its central figures

122
collecion of maijana lan lining Pei balcon. Thee indicae he geneal indiffeence
towards the law and her predilection for pleasure. The camera pans over the plants in a medium
cloe, and hen oom o een fhe o o eeal he ineio of Pei colofl bohemian
apartment. Pepi has both highbrow and lowbrow tastes: a record spins on the turntable and Little
Nell bea ock and ol l hi Do he Sim la a high olme; a moden lam i ao a
cabinet, surrounded kitschy plastic figurines; the walls are decorated with framed modern art by
Michael Buthe and Guillermo Pérez Villalta, and a television sits on the ground. The camera
movement stops as Pepi fills the center of the frame. She is lying on a pile of mismatched cushions
and aing eman icke ino an albm. Pei age i nee gien in he film, b hee deail
indicate she is somewhat childish, and perhaps younger than the actress Carmen Maura, who was
in her mid-thirties during filming.
The camera situates Pepi alone in the intimate space of her home. Yet, in the horizontal
perspectives established in the opening shot, the gaze of neighbors travels both ways. While the
camea look o fom Pei aamen, neighbo can alo look in. A Allinon ie, Madid
i a labinh and fll of ing ee a fact that is confirmed within the first two minutes of the
film naaie hen Pei ing neighbo coe s the street to pay her a visit.315 Madrid is not
as democratic as it would seem; the gazes of neighbors are shown to reproduce the authoritarian
structures of control embodied by the pervasive surveillance of the dictatorship era, although the
sightlines have now been reinscribed upon more horizonal planes. 316 Soon, Pei neighbo
interrupts her scrapbooking and barges into her apartment. He identifies himself as a policeman

passed. Sánchez was also an art collector, and the works visible in this scene belonged to her.
Sánchez Castrejón, Todo sobre mi Madrid, 16.
315 Allinson, A Spanish Labyrinth, 120.
316 Voyeurism is thematized visually in this opening sequence and throughout the film, with
many shots framed through open windows and several of the characters spying on each other.

123
who lives in one of the apartments across the street and informs her that has seen the marijuana
plants on her balcony. The ever-resourceful Pepi offers him her body in exchange for his silence,
yet the policeman forces Pepi into more than she agreed to. He rapes her and robs her of her
virginity, which she claims she had intended to sell to the highest bidder. This violation, according
o he ineile, leae Pei sedienta de venganza, o hng fo eenge, and he naaie ha
follows revolves loosely around a revenge plot.
Pepi arranges for her friend Bom (played by Alaska, also known as María Olvido Gara), a
teenage punk, and her bandmates to beat the policeman. They do so in spectacular fashion, while
dressed as traditional chulapos and singing a popular zarzuela number from La revoltosa.
However, Pepi later sees the policeman unharmed (it turns out that they have unknowingly beaten
his twin brother instead) and decides to seek revenge otherwise. She arranges to take knitting
leon fom Lci, he oliceman middle -aged wife. Uon dicoeing Lci maochiic
tendencies during one of the knitting lessons, Pepi encourages Bom to urinate on Luci. This leads
to a sexual awakening for Luci. Unfulfilled as a middle-aged hoeife ih a hband ha ea
he like hi mohe, she leaves the policeman for Bom and the two become unlikely lovers in a
sado-masochistic relationship.
Pepi and Bom move in together and share a flat with the artist duo Costus, who also appear
as secondary characters in the film. This apartment at Calle Palma 14 a Co acal home
and studio during the movida years. The apartment is painted white and decorated with white
modern furniture and kitschy bric-a-bac. The all ae adoned ih Co bigh aining.
One scene even features the artists hemele a he ain hei Chochonismo Ilustrado series,
hich old be ehibied he folloing ea in 1981. Thi eie inclde he aining Aparición
de Fanco al Sagado Coan de Je discussed in the first chapter, as well portraits of the

124
Sanih King and Qeen. The eie alo inclde a famo oai of Fanco ido, Camen
Polo, which hangs in the living room of the apartment in the film [Fig. 4.2]. Costus depict Polo in
a fuchsia overcoat, which is accessorized with a purple fascinator, white gloves, and gaudy jewelry.
She mile idel and ae o a cod oide he aining fame. Vali ead hi oai of
Carmen Polo as a parody that caricatures the retrograde culture of the dictatorship and highlights
the cursilería, or cultural belatedness, of the regime.317 Ye j a Co aining of Fanco
could be read as an homage to earlier forms of authoritarian portraiture, their portrait of Polo
smiling and waving references the contemporary covers of gossip magazines such as 10 Minutos
and ¡Hola!. Founded under the harsh press restrictions of the dictatorship, these magazines were
committed to positive affective statements which evacuated political content to celebrate and
glamorize the cultural elite of the dictatorship. As Diana Norton has argued, such gossip magazines
continued to perpetuate the affective dimensions of fascism into the democracy.318 The appearance
of this particular painting in the film speaks to the ways in which the Francoist elite continued to
be a cultural referent in the democracy. If Almodóvar indeed filmed as if Franco had never existed,
the painting resurfaces as a return of the repressed in psychoanalytic terms.319 Polo ncann
iion ino he film democaic een demonae he imoibi lity of repressing
Francoism, which had already pervaded the democracy in a seemingly neutralized form as a
familiar product of popular culture.320

317 Valis, The Culture of Cursilería, 5.
318 Noon, Foh Facim.
319 Freud, The Uncanny, 148.
320 Vila ead Co aining a eening he hio of Sain a a imle eali, hich i
fla, een, and oidian , thereby showing how the past exists as an encryption in the daily
reality of the transition. Vilarós, El mono del desencanto, 265.

125

Fig. 4.2: Pei and Bom in Bom aamen. Co aining Carmen Polo, viuda de
Franco (Camen Polo, Widow of Franco), 1978, appears in the background.

In this scene, the artists paint while Bom uses a punching bag in the living room and Luci
reads pornographic comic books on the couch, her frumpy housedress contrasts with her
surroundings in the stylish apartment. The space also contrasts starkly with the cursi apartment
Luci had shared with her policeman husband and his twin brother and which was decorated with
dark wood furniture, lace doilies, and outdated wallpaper. Cursi could be translated into English
as tacky or unfashionable, but the Spanish term also signals a unique cultural belatedness and
social inadequacy linked to the uneven process of modernity in Spain. According to Valis,
cursilería is the effect produced when there are insufficient means (economic, cultural, social) to
achiee deied end. 321 Fo Vali, he cle of Fancoim i ineeniall ci in ha he
regime projected a nostalgic image of the middle class modeled on social values and beliefs that
were already obsolete or retrograde during the dictatorship.322 In hi a, Lci moemen fom
her old, cursi aamen o he ne, moe fahionable onding of Co aamen ignal a

321 Valis, The Culture of Cursilería, 11.
322 Valis, 5.

126
departure from the outmoded values of Francoism. However, the rupture with Francoist values is
ultimately incomplete as Luci continues to wear the fundamentally cursi housedress in her new,
more modern home. The camp recycling of Francoist cultural symbols, such as seen in the
paintings of Costus, draw attention to the way in which these outdated symbols continued to
saturate the popular culture of the democracy. Just as the paintings deploy camp aesthetics to
critique the past, they also critique the present.
The colofl aamen fom he cene of he go moemen in he film, j a i
eed a a cenal hb fo he moida aician. Mch of Pepi, Luci, Bom was filmed in
authentic locations and many of the figures of the movida such as Costus, or band members from
Radio Futura and Ejecutivos Agresivos, are featured as extras. These authentic elements in the
odcion ee neceiaed b he film non -existent budget. However, the use of authentic
spaces and extras also gives the film a particular documentary quality. As Paul Julian Smith notes,
he film deendence on hee ahenic elemen o he e -eiing cene cona ih he
narrative recognition of cinematic artifice.323 Indeed, a side story revolves around Pepi making a
film about their lives. Pepi gives Luci and Bom acting direction, telling them they must exaggerate
hei naal endencie. Pei mea -documentary, the film within the film, calls attention to the
constructed nature of cinema. In this way, while the film serves as a document of the movida, of
its people and places, it also questions its own documentary quality, reminding the viewer that
these are also characters and sets.
Pepi is a bourgeois young woman who lives off of her parents. But when her father tells
her that she must find a job, she begins a successful career as a publicist and creates feminist
inventions, such as a doll that menstruates or panties that absorb urine and that can be converted

323 Smith, Desire Unlimited, 11.

127
into a dildo. Her upward social mobility is symbolized visually through her physical movement
within the city. In the beginning of the film, Pepi is shown walking through drab middle class
neighbohood. One cene ho he alking o aend Bom band acice in he bilding a
Mantuano, 51, which was a self-managed ae ocial cene (ceno ocial okado
aogeionado). 324 The center hosted music performances, theater productions, conferences, and
workshops and served as an example of the types of horizontally-organized spaces that became
possible in the democracy, as social collectives and neighborhood organizations began to form.
After she begins working as a publicist, Pepi strolls through the skyscrapers of a business park in
the modern Azca neighborhood with Luci and Bom. Located in the north of the city, Azca was
originally conceived in the 1946 Plan Bidagor as a business development that would surround the
new government buildings of the Nuevos Ministerios complex, which was completed in 1942. The
plan sought to expand the city along the Castellana, which was then named the Avenue of the
Generalísimo. It proposed to develop a block of modern office buildings with metro and railway
connections. After many delays, construction finally began in the 1970s and would continue into
the 1990s, as discussed in Chapter Four.
In the scene, Pepi and Bom walk toward the camera with Luci trailing close behind as she
is wearing a leash that Bom holds. As they approach, the camera tilts to a low-angle shot making
the women appear large and powerful and emphasizing the verticality of the skyscrapers in the
background. The three characters embody the powerful possibilities of emancipated women that
were newly imaginable after Francoism: the successful advertising executive, the deviant punk-

324 Sánchez Castrejón, Todo sobre mi Madrid, 21.

128
rocker, and the sexually-liberated housewife. The image of the liberated woman, as Triana Toribio
noe, a efl a inde of democac and modeni. 325
Man of he adance in omen igh achieed ding he Reblic ee lo ding he
dictatorship. As an example of he egime aide oad omen, Aicle 57 of he Fancoi
ciil code aed, El maido ha de oege a la mje a obedecele (The hband m
protect the wife and she must obey him). Women needed permission from their father or husband
to oen a bank accon, ign a conac, o o ael. Th Lci hband dima on leaning
that there is no law under which he can force his wife to come home is hardly a joke. Less than
five years after the derogation of these laws, Almodóvar filled his first film with emancipated
omen. A he dieco aed in a 1981 ineie, I aned o make a film abo aonomo
omen, one of hei on bodie and mind, ho do iho men. 326 The film centers on the
female trio, with male characters playing only a supporting role. In an illustration of their
autonomy, the three women move throughout Madrid, from Malasaña to Azca. They are out at all
hours of the day and the night, attending meetings, parties, and concerts. In the words of the
television annonce ha eo on oh cle in he film, no paran, he don o.
Ye a Almoda conined in he ame ineie, I did no an o make a femini film
eihe, ahe one ha i oide moali. 327 That is, Almodóvar ultimately is ambivalent about
aligning himself with a particular emancipatory political project. The filmmaker began working
on Pepi, Luci, Bom in 1978, the year that Spain ratified its constitution and just one year after the
first general elections were held. The film celebae he ne ocial oibiliie in Sain nacen
democracy with its representation of mobile and emancipated women and fluid expressions of

325 Toibio, Memoia selecia, 43.
326 Cited in Willoquet-Maricondi, Pedro Almodóvar, 6.
327 Cited in Willoquet-Maricondi, 6.

129
sexuality and gende. B i alo aodie he ne democac ih he famo geneal eecion
scene. Almoda aodic eion of he con ecenl celebaed 1977 geneal elecion i
a competition for penis size in which the winner is allowed to do as he wishes with whomever he
ihe a he a. The aiciaion of eeone a he a in hi elecoal oce, he
measurement and evaluation of the candidates, and the authority granted to the (necessarily male)
inne a eiden da clea aallel o he geneal elecion. In hi comaion, he cene
suggests that despite its image of equality, the sexist and masculinist tendencies of the dictatorship
remained in the new democracy.
At the same time however, the general erections are more than just a political critique; the
scene functions as a declaration of sexual liberty. The contest is emceed with great fanfare by
Almodóvar himself, who uses a measuring tape to fairly and objectively calculate the largest
contestant. One particular shot shows the measuring process from behind so that the nude buttocks
of the contestants are visible. Almoda face i famed beeen he leg of he men on stage as
he gazes up adoringly. But the rest of the party men and women alike also gaze at the naked
men with visible pleasure and wait with apparent excitement to find out who the winner will pick
o do hi bidding. Thi flid eali and celebaion of eal leae indicae a blaan
assertion of the autonomy of pleasure and triumph of libidinal anarchy over the pieties of political
ogeie. 328 It is precisely this tension between a certain anarchic licentiousness and the
liberal democratic pretenses of the transition-era political left that led to critiques of the movida
for its supposedly apolitical nature. To this end, Juan Luis Cebrián, the founder of El País, accused
the movida of having a confusion of values in its move towards hedonism and individualism, and

328 Smith, Desire Unlimited, 16.

130
en o fa a o age ha he moida a a fom of clal facim. 329 While Cebin claim
i hebolic, i i e ha Almoda film i omeha ambialen in i ejection of fascism.
Luci ends up returning to her policeman husband after he brutally beats her, thereby satisfying her
masochistic desires.
In the penultimate scene, Pepi and Bom visit Luci in the hospital. Luci is shown lying in
the hospital bed swathed in white bandages. A satisfied smile contrasts with her badly bruised face.
Behind her are symbols of the three pillars Francoism. A simple crucifix hangs on the wall in the
cene of he fame, eeening he Caholic Chch. To he lef i Lci oli ceman husband,
representing familial order. Luci, the liberated housewife, is in fact still controlled by her violent
hband. He loom behind he ih hi hand fiml laced on he holde. The hband fige
casts a ghostly shadow on the wall to the right of the frame, which could be read as the specter of
Franco, who symbolized the power of the state in the Francoist triumvirate. In the scene, Luci ends
he elaionhi ih Bom, elling he, Yoe no a eil a o hink o ae. I i eealed that
Lci limae eeion i no ha he i a eall -liberated sadomasochistic housewife, but
that she desires a return to the retrograde gender roles and to the real and structural violence of the
dictatorship that her husband symbolizes. In this ene, he film cold be ead a eidence of he
con incaaci o ge i ahoiaian a. 330
The film clal maing of la movida madrileña is as politically ambivalent as the
movement itself. The film ends as Bom and Pepi walk together in minidresses and matching pink
leggings. Their bright clothes contrast with the drab surroundings of the city. They have resolved
to leave Luci behind and are happily planning for the future. Bom comments that punk music is

329 Gallero, Sólo se vive una vez, 314.
330 Song and Nichol, Back o he Fe, 3.

131
going out of style and Pepi recommends that she sing boleros instead. In effect, she recommends
that Bom change a subversive genre associated with rebellious youth for a traditional style
associated with sentimentality that she substitute the new and modern for the traditional. Yet the
embace of adiional fom aadoicall lead o a ne life, a Pei commen, Ante ti se abre
una nueva vida (A ne life i oening befoe o). The o omen alk ogehe on a
edeian bidge ha coe Madid innemo ad ial highway, known as the M-30. One of the
egime lage ban inface ojec in he caial, he higha a inclded in he
egime 1946 Plan Bidago. Hoee, concion on he higha did no begin nil 1970 and
was not completed until the democratic era. Just as the Azca development, the M-30 is a reminder
of the structures that carried over from one period to another.
The bridge can be seen a symbol of crossing or transition, but it also forms a connection
between two sides, between the a and he fe. A Smih ie, he film gge ha he
modernity which it proclaims so shamelessly is inextricable from the dead forms which precede it
and hich i claim, nonehele o hae eeded. 331 Yet, the film reminds us that despite the
death of the Franco the symbolic head of the body politiche democac eio fom ae
no neceail dead. Tha i o a ha hee i no need o eciae Fanco gho, fo he
cultural and political institutions of the regime carried on and found new vitality in the democracy.
In doing o, he film conadic he moida eenion of beaking fom he a and, indeed,
Almoda on claim ha he made film a if Fanco nee eied. Inead, he film confim
that the supposed rupture with Francoism left both ghostly shadows and permanent structures,
which impinge upon both the present of the transition and the future of the democracy. The film
calls attention to the fact that, despite the political transition to democracy, Spain ahoiaian

331 Smith, Desire Unlimited, 17.

132
a emained, in he od of Sole, iall and acie and aciaed in he een of he
movida.332

Fluidity, Mobility, and Desire in Labyrinth of Passion

Almoda econd feae -lengh film alo ma he moida cene, clb, and moemen,
and performs an intimate cartography of its characters. Like Pepi, Luci, y Bom, the film is
populated with many of the leading figures of the movida: Pedro Almodóvar and Fabio (Fanny)
McNamara perform music with the Pegamoides in the club scenes and in another instance of a
film within a film Almodóvar directs McNamara in a photoshoot with the well-known
photographer Pablo Pérez Mínguez.333 As Dapena has observed, Laberinto de pasiones provided
iibili fo man of he moida ban bcle inclding bohemian ai, deigne,
rockers, and fashionistas who contested traditional aesthetic and social values. 334 While such
groups had been previously relegated to the margins, Laberinto de pasiones maps them into the
city center.
Laberinto de pasiones begin in anohe of he cenal cene o eing of he moida:
el Rastro, a market established in the middle ages and which still takes place every Sunday in the
Embajadoe neighbohood. Fo he film oagoni, Seilia (Cecilia Roh), he Rao i l
a labyrinth of passions as she walks slowly and deliberately through the maze of crowded aisles
between the stalls selling new and used goods. She is shown in a closeup as she surveys the objects

332 Stoler, Duress, 25.
333 Many of the leading figures also collaborated in the filmmaking. The painter Guillermo Pérez
Villalta designed many of the sets, which also included photos by photographer Ouka Lele.
Likewise Carlos Berlanga contributed to the costume design and some interiors were again shot
in Co ne aamen . Daena, Making Sain Fahionable, 502.
334 Dapena, 502.

133
of her desire from behind a pair of purple sunglasses. However, she ignores the goods for sale in
the market. Instead, POV shots indicate that her desiring gaze focuses on male crotches and
buttocks as fragmented body parts. The scene intercuts these shots of Sexilia with another shopper
in the market, Riza (Imanol Arias), whose gaze falls on many of the same fragmented male bodies
a Seilia. Thei ighline nee ineec, b he cloe of Ria and Seilia a e alternated in
such a way that it becomes unclear whose point of view the fragmented bodies represent. This
montage is a dizzying kaleidoscope of visual pleasure, the fragmented bodies are multiplied and
dlicaed like Ria efaced image on a dila of sunglasses [Fig. 4.3]. The scene ends when
each (temporarily) satisfies their desires: Riza picks up the flamboyantly dressed Fabio McNamara
and Sexilia takes a group of men home to her apartment. This opening scene reflects a Movida-era
Madrid that is fluid, fun, and somewhat disorienting. As the common adage of the movida
mmaied i: En Madrid nadie te preguntaba ni de dónde venías ni con quién te acostabas (In
Madrid no one asked where you came from or who you were sleeping with). The city was a
labyrinth of intersecting and refracting desires.

Fig. 4.3: Ria efaced image in he Rao nglae dila.

134
Sexilia and Riza both move through the market in a conspicuous manner and make signals
to the individuals that interest them. Like the goods in the market, their desire and that of
others is on display. Indeed, Fabio McMamara even conspicuously enlists the help of a waiter to
pick up Riza. Unlike in La semana del asesino, in which the expression of desire was policed and
relegated to the margins, the streets of central Madrid are now open to the hetero and homosexual
desires of men and omen. A Smih obee, homo - and heterosexuality are thus juxtaposed
and endeed eialen a he ga -coded activity of cruising is thus extended to straight
omen. 335 However, despite the representations of sexual fluidity and the diversity of sexual
eeion in he oening cene, he cenal lo of he film effeciel foecloe hi infinie
ooni, o he labinh of endle oibili. The film eole a round a love story between
Sexilia, who is a pop star and a nymphomaniac, and Riza, who is the gay exiled crown prince of
Tiran (an imaginary country that shares many parallels with the political history of Iran). The two
characters met previously as childen, b, a eealed hogh Seilia flahback in
chohea eamen, hei iniial meeing a ineed b Ria emohe, he Eme
of Tiran. Upon their reencounter as adults, Riza and Sexilia renounce their nonheteronormative
sexual identities and inclinations and agree to a monogamous and heteronormative relationship.
The exiled prince is pursued across the city both by Tiranian terrorists, who have plans to
kidnap him, and by his stepmother, who hopes to impregnate herself with his noble lineage.
Meanwhile, Riza becomes a singer in a pop rock band and Sexilia falls in love with him when she
sees him perform. The two plan to escape together to the Caribbean, but not before devising an
elaboae lan in hich Seilia fiend Qei, a d cleane aian, ill ndego laic
ge o anfom heelf in Seilia image and ake Seilia lace a he inge in he o

335 Smith, Desire Unlimited, 24.

135
group. Aside from admiring Sexilia, Queti has another motive to change her identity: she hopes to
escape her father, who believes that she is her mother and rapes her every other day. However,
after Queti transforms herself into Sexilia she continues the incestuous relationship, replacing her
on biological fahe fo Seilia fahe. Meanhile Seilia ndegoe ch oanalytic treatment
for her phobia of daylight. Through treatment, she learns that this phobia in fact arises from an
unresolved childhood trauma in which she perceived that Riza and her father had abandoned her
on a sunny beach.
The o i, i s chases, its twists and turns, lead to all manner of movements that
crisscross the city by foot, bus, taxi, and finally by plane. From the Rastro to the Rock-Ola club to
Madid b and meo em, he camea ma he chaace moemen aco he c ity. After
Sexilia sees Riza perform at the club, she takes the metro to Ciudad Lineal to find him. She has
just stayed up all night and moves incongruously through the morning rush hour in her clubbing
outfit, a bright fuchsia cape and neon earrings. On the metro, she uses a mirror to apply lipstick in
a tone that matches her cape, drawing further attention from the somber morning commuters. The
med bon, ello, and ga of Madid ban ine landcae and of he clohing of hoe
around her are eminicen of he Eaa gi of he dicaohi eiod. The bigh cona of
her clothing signals a definitive break from the austere aesthetics of the regime. Throughout the
film, the drab exterior settings contrast sharply with the vibrant clothing worn by the central
characters and the stylish modern interiors of their apartments.
Sexilia lives in the typically upper-class neighborhood of Salamanca with her father, who
is a well-known doctor. Their apartment is tastefully, if soberly, decorated and features a formal
foe and eceiing aea fo he fahe medical acice. B Seilia ae hae been daed

136
for her more avant-garde tastes. Filmed in the apartment of photographer Pablo Pérez Mínguez,336
Seilia bedoom i lage, ih he h igh ceilings, wainscoting, and wall paneling that would be
expected in such a stately apartment. Yet the room also contains many elements that are
unexpected in a tasteful bourgeois apartment. It is filled with bright pillows, diaphanous fabrics
and a pinball machine. The all of Seilia bedoom feae a mal ained in bigh ael
colors by Guillermo Pérez Villalta [Fig. 4.4]. The mural represents an abstracted orgy scene; the
muscular male and female bodies painted in action with hard dramatic lines are reminiscent of
ancient Greek representations of the idealized nude human form. The bodies, with limbs and
genitals twisting together, represent quite literally intersecting and refracting desire.

Fig. 4.4: Pei aamen feae a Gillemo Pe z Villalta mural

Seilia loe inee, Ria ha come o ee Madid becae es la ciudad más divertida
del mundo y él es tan moderno (I i he mo aming ci in he old and he i o moden), a
a spy tells his aunt over the phone. While the term moden hee i in a a ehemim fo Ria
homoeali, he deciion alo cae he image of clal eeimenaion ha he
moida ojeced globall and eflec he moemen eoccaion ih modeni. So mch

336 The apartment is located at Monte Esquinza, 14. Sánchez Castrejón, Todo sobre mi Madrid,
27.

137
so, that many of artists of the period, including Almodóvar, used the term los modernos (the
moderns) to identify themselves. As Vernon and Morris observe, Among he oh ho idenified
with the term modernos, there was a sense of new, infinite possibilities and a belief that Madrid,
with its around the-clock revelry, was ready to stand alongside New York, London, or Paris as a
lace of clal innoaion and hi (o)moden lifele. 337 Indeed, it was the press and not
hee aciione ho had olaied he em moida. 338 The movida was fully engaged in
he aeheic and hioical ojec of modeni. Folloing Gianni Vaimo aological claim
that modernity is characterized by valuing the modern above all else, Smith argues therefore that
he Sain of he 1980 i el he mo moden of ocieie. 339
Almodóvar stated that he intended to present Madrid as an exciting and innovative cultural
center in Laberinto de pasiones. M inenion, h e claimed, a o een Madid a he old
mo imoan ci, a ci eeone came o and hee anhing cold haen. 340 With its fast-
paced movement about the city, its complicated intersecting plotlines, and its cast of fashionable
and eaagan chaace, he film eem o inenif he ci o -Franco modern sensibility.
If postmodernity can be understood as an intensification and fragmentation of the characteristics
of modernity, then Laberinto de pasiones i he ideal film fo ndeanding Sain en ino he
postmodern condition. For Alejandro Varderi, postmodernity provided he oliical fomla ha
allowed Spain to exorcise the ghosts of its dictatorship by dismantling tradition in the service of
the democratic present.341 Yet, how might a country that has yet to reconcile its traumatic past of

337 Morris and Vernon, Post-Franco, Postmodern, 8.
338 Smith, The Moderns, 43.
339 The Moderns, 9.
340 Almodóvar, Strauss, and Baignères, Almodóvar on Almodóvar, 23.
341 Varderi, Severo Sarduy y Pedro Almódovar, 157.

138
dictatorship ever do so in a postmodernity that Jameson describe a, an aem o hink abo
he een hioicall in an age ha ha fogoen ho o hink hioicall in he fi lace? 342
With modernity comes a particular understanding of history and historicization, which
Bno Lao ha called he m alaie of hioicim. 343 That is to say that the concept of
modernity rests on a logic of temporal progression in which the privileging of the present rests on
the irretrievability of the past. In this view, modernity conceives of time like an arrow, as a
totalizing progression away from an irretrievable past. In postmodernity the past still remains
irretrievable, but the ao ajecoie ae fagmened and mlilied. In boh Pepi, Luci, Bom
and Laberinto de pasiones, the formal emphasis on movement could therefore be understood as a
reflection of this totalizing progression. Both films are rapidly paced and the camera and characters
ae conanl in moion. Hoee, hile he omen in Almoda fi film ael hog h the
ci b foo, moemen in he econd film i inenified: neal all he chaace moemen ake
place via taxi or train.
Tai ael ill become inceaingl moe imoan in Almoda lae film, ch a
Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, 1988),
or Todo sobre mi madre (All About my Mother 1999). A Allinon noe, ai ael i a ign of
the relative affluence of the sons and daughters of the middle class, with hyperactive socials lives
and no ime o ae on foo. 344 The inceaed ole of ai and ohe ehicle ael in Almoda
films can be seen as a reflection of the increase in vehicle travel across Spain as the country became
more affluent and thus more mobile as a result of the so-called economic miracle.

342 Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, ix.
343 Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, 68.
344 Allinson, A Spanish Labyrinth, 117.

139
In Laberinto de pasiones, Seilia befiend Qei hen he o he d cleane aian
fom he aicab. Qei i on he idealk eaing Seilia clohing. Sied o ee Qei in her
clothes, Sexilia stops the cab to confront her. Initially she argues with Queti on the sidewalk, but
the scene ends with the two women riding home in the cab together as friends. As Pedro Sánchez
Castrejón has noted, this scene maps an impossible trajectory as the cab travels past several
landmarks in opposite directions all in a matter of seconds. 345 But it seems Almodóvar was
interested in reflecting a fictitious version of Madrid in the film, a city in which multiple
labinhine ajecoie ineeced, hee anhing cold haen. 346 In hi a, Almoda
camea ace a diffeen geogah han de la Igleia ciing cinemaic. While de la Igleia
cruising crosses the boundaries of class and sexuality, the trajectory of Almoda labinhine
taxi traveling shots appear to transgress the very boundaries of time.
In developing the psychogeographic practice of dérive, the Situationist International
attempted to create a new way of being in the world that would restructure space, time, and the
city itself. In other words, space can be understood not just a container, but as constructing and
constructed by social practice. To achieve this, the situationist dérive extolled the tactic of aimless
walking, which also contested the capitalist notions that divided time into labor and leisure. The
lafl acice of die c aco he diiion of he ace of he ci ino ok, e, and
leie one in ha i enailed he aciione andeing abo in he ace of he ci
according to their own sense of time. 347 This is because the dérive is driven by an abandon to the
encone. A Debod decibe i, one o moe eon ding a ceain eiod, do hei
relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and

345 Sánchez Castrejón, Todo sobre mi Madrid, 34.
346 Almodóvar, Strauss, and Baignères, Almodóvar on Almodóvar, 23.
347 Wark, The Beach beneath the Street, 25 my empasis.

140
action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find
hee. 348 In short, the dérive is a means to reconceive how inhabitants experience space. The
iaioni ma image a fagmened ci ha i boh he el of multiple restructurings of a
caiali ocie and he e fom of a adical ciie of hi ocie. 349
The film gee oad an imoan dae o he die emhai on alking.
Motorized vehicles have increasingly restructured cities more than walkers over the last century.
Madid embace of hi moden mode of ano i eiden in he egime econcion of
the city as early as the Bidagor plan, which developed the M-30 freeway system and fortified the
Castellana and other roadways as major vehicle arteries. While certainly the rise of so-called car
culture has posed a great risk to pedestrians, resulted in an increase in noxious greenhouse gasses,
and decimated public transportation infrastructure, it has also phenomenally restructured the urban
experience. As Thrift observes, one hnded ea o o afe he bih of aomobili, he
experience of driving is sinking into our technological unconscious. 350 That is, automobility has
produced its own practices of everyday life with the embodied acice of diing and
aengeing, which were already reflected in cinematic practices such as the tracking shot.351
Laberinto de pasiones foad he ai a a aial acice, a a mode of chaing Madid
fragmented and contradictory postmodern sensibility.
In one scene, Toraya cruises via taxi. In an effort to find Riza, the princess travels through
Madid ical ga ick aea. She co -dresses in a smart navy pinstripe suit and tie and
hides her hair under a fedora. She then takes a cab to the Casa de Campo park and briefly walks

348 Debod, Theo of he Die, 62.
349 McDonogh, Siaioni Sace, 86.
350 Thrift, Non-Representational Theory, 75.
351 Thrift, 80.

141
the paths at night. In this cruising site, Toraya crosses paths twice with the Tiranan terrorist who
is also searching for Riza. She exchanges glances with many of the men in the park, but ultimately
en o he ai o conine o cie/each fo Ria, hi ime fom he aomobile aenge
ea. In a acking ho aken fom he ineio of he ai, he camea cie hogh Madid
streets and parks. Here, the camera is a Vertovian cruising camera-eye. As Vertov wrote in his
kino-ee manifeo, I, a camea, fling melf alongmaneeing in he chao of moemen,
recording movement, startling with movements of the most complex combinations. 352
Importantly for Vertov, the camera-eye always implies a technological I. As a passenger gazing
fom he ai, Toaa iion i alead inegaed ino machinic moemen and i h a machinic
a of eeing. The camea hae Toaa machinic gae, and, hogh cinemaic e, allo
he adience o alo cie Madid dak ee.
A hi ho, he ak ae olaed b Madid mo maginalied indiidal:
transvestites, prostitutes, and johns walk alongside the taxi. Each of the filmed subjects breaks
cinematic convention by aing back a he camea, looking back a Toaa echnological I.
Deie an eeline mach ih Toaa gae, he face famed in he ai indo, her position in
he ca doe no allo fo mmeical ineacion. 353 While Toaa ciing ake place in the
hoional ace of he ee, he gae emain mediaed b he ehicle indo and he
movement occurs too quickly for any sustained social interaction. While her perspective is no
longe a oaliing bid -eye-view, it still reinscribes the divisions of perspective and power
beeen he oe and he alke. Madid o -transition embrace of modernity did not
necessarily correlate with more democratic social relations. The view from the taxi window creates

352 Vertov, Kino-Eye, 17.
353 Thrift, Non-Representational Theory, 81.

142
a quintessentially post-modern fragmented cartography. But this postmodern view was not
necessarily a more even form of modernity, for in many ways it reiterated the social and class
divisions that the dictatorship sought to maintain.
In the film, taxis are also central to the chase scenes in which the Princess Toraya, the ex-
lead inge of Ria band, and he Tianian eoi all e Ria and Seilia. Each a come
and goe in Madid diinc ed -striped taxi-cabs. Their nearly simultaneous arrivals and
departures provide for both a comedy of errors and for suspenseful missed connections in the fast
pace of an action film. But where might this action and movement lead? The film represents
Madrid as an interconnected and refracting labyrinth. But the labyrinth does not necessarily imply
forward movement. Instead, it is a maze of opportunities, desires, and potentialities, where identity
transformations are achieved through makeovers, plastic surgery, and psychoanalytic treatment.
Much of the film is a celebration of fluidity and a rejection of fixed positions that, as Smith asserts,
aniciae ha ciie of ideni and eence ha a lae o become o familia in academic
femini, minoi, and ee heo. 354 The chaace miad moemen, hoee, ae
constrained by the urban boundaries of the city. While it is presumed that the characters depart via
ailane in he ending, he lane nee leae Madid aiace ding he diegei. Likeie, he
emanciao oenial inodced b Almoda labinhine o ibilities and libidinal anarchy
i limied b a nea ending: Ria and Seilia heeoeal and heeonomaie loe o die
he film denoemen, foecloing ohe alenaie. In the end, sexual protocols, and the
distributions of sentiments that they entail, cannot be disentangled from regimes of power.

354 Smith, Desire Unlimited, 3.

143
La Movida and a Politics to Come

As the preeminent cultural products of the movida, Almoda fi o film eflec he
ambivalent cultural politics of their contemporary moment. Indeed, neither film leverages a clear
opposition to the politics of the dictatorship or the transition. Instead, they map the movements of
Madid libidi nal post-Franco culture. The characters that populate this Almodovarian landscape
are, in the words of Smith, fablo eccenic [ha] lie onl fo he momen and eel in hei
eficiali. 355 Fo hi eaon, Almoda eal eiod i ofen ao ciated with eccentricity
and hedonim and heefoe ciied a aoliical o ahioical. 356 Such criticisms charge
Almodóvar with contributing to the so-called culture of amnesia, which was promoted by the
institutions of the Spanish transition. As if to confirm his place as a cultural product within the
state-onoed cle ind of he democaic ea, Almoda ha aed, mi cine es producto
de la democracia española y mis películas son la demostración de que era real (m cinema i he
product of the Spanish democracy and my films are the demonstration that it was real).357
Yet perhaps in an effort to appease his critics, Almodóvar has since modified his professed
oliical ance. In an ineie ih Fedeic Sa, he dieco aid, T wenty years ago, my
revenge against Franco consisted in not recognizing his existence, his memory, in making films as
if he had never walked the earth. Now I believe it is wrong to forget that era and that it is important
to remember that, after all, it wan o long ago. 358 To this end, Almodóvar has publicly
supported the demands of family members of the victims of the Franco regime and even executive
produced the 2019 documentary, El silencio de otros (The Silence of Others dir. Alumdena

355 Smith, 19.
356 Smith, 2.
357 Koch, Almoda , my emphasis.
358 Almodóvar, Strauss, and Baignères, Almodóvar on Almodóvar, 154.

144
Carracedo and Robert Bahar), which brought international attention to the struggle of these victims
for institutional justice. Furthermore, many of his later films such as Todo sobre mi madre (1999),
La mala educación (Bad Education 2004), or La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In 2011), engage
with elements of a traumatic past, both at the subjective and the collective level. Julián Gutiérrez-
Albilla identifies an increasing self-efleii hee lae film, hich acall encoage he
spectator to ponde ho he fagmen and ace of memo and hio ende in he een. 359
In ohe od, he aeheic acice of Almoda film conain a oliical oenial in ha
they generate a process of thinking through the memories of the past and the experience of trauma
on a collective level.
Hoee, inead of eading he dieco lae moe elf -reflexive work as a political turn,
Gutiérrez-Albilla ead he oliical hogho Almoda oee. He ighl noe ha he
apparent distinction between an apolitical early period and an increasingly political later period
overlooks the ways in which the past has irrupted, been evoked, or been registered, albeit
obliel, hogho Almoda caee. 360 Almoda fi film hold heefo re not be
read as an apolitical contradiction of his later, more engaged films. As is evident in the two films
died hee, he dieco a alo deel concened ih Sain ocial anfomaion and hi
cinema defended alternate political and social possibilities from its very beginning. As Juan Carlos
Ibae ha aged, Almoda aend[ed] o he oliical eali of hi ime. 361 While they
eiocae in condemning he dicaohi o oing Sain nacen democac, hee film
gesture towards a politics outside this binary opposition.

359 Gutiérrez-Albilla, Aesthetics, Ethics and Trauma in the Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar, 17.
360 Gutiérrez-Albilla, 5. Adrián Pérez Melgosa (2014) and Paul Julian Smith (2013) also register
ace of he dieco oliical concen in hi eal film .
361Ibe, Memo, Poliic, and he Po -Transition in Almodóvar Cinema, 172.

145
In hi ene, he hedonim and eccenici of he dieco eal film oi a oliic of
frivolity that, instead of staging a nostalgic or melancholic return to the past, insist on the
heterogenous possibilities of the present. That is, the possibilities which the movida gestures
towards are a recognition that democracy, as it had been postulated by the institutions of the
aniion, a an em conce. In he od of Deida, i a, and i, a meanin g in aiing. 362
Instead, he moida oliic of fioli oi an alenaie ha i eminicen of Deida
association of democracy with freedom, or license:
Fo democac, he aage o democac, democratization, will have always
been associated with license, with taking too many liberties [trop-de-liberté], with
the dissoluteness of the libertine, with liberalism, indeed perversion and
delinquency, with malfeasance, with failing to live according the law, with the
noion ha eehing i al loed, ha anhing goe. 363

This idea of democracy foregrounds freedom in the form of liberty, license, and licentiousness.
Deida ace he aociaion of feedom ih democac back o Plao Republic, and thus
age ha i i on he bai of feedom ha e ill hae conceied he conce of democac. 364
He argues that democracy has largely been understood as the freedom to do as one pleases, a
certain self-sovereignty or ipseity.365 This self-sovereignty must exist outside notions of the state,
which necessarily restrict individual freedoms in that state sovereignty is always located outside
the social body. In this sense, Almoda film conc a o of libidinal feedom ha gestures
oad a democac oide he ae and i iniion and en a o of anhing goe
liberalism to the social body. The characters follow their desires and let these carry them across
Madrid; their licentiousness thereby restructures the space of the city. In the logic of the dérive,

362 Derrida, Rogues, 8.
363 Derrida, 25.
364 Derrida, 22. Thi aociaion, Deida age, ha gone moe o le neioned.
365 Derrida, 12.

146
hee moemen and acice change he meaning of he ci hogh changing he a i a
inhabied. 366 Their libidinal and labyrinthine trajectories sketch a map toward democratic
freedom.
Yet labyrinth odce conoled ah and obfcae he a foad. Almoda
labyrinths locate democracy not in the present of the movida, but elsewhere. Indeed, the hedonistic
culture of the movida was not necessarily optimistic: Cebrián classifies the movida as the first
clal moemen of he democaic dienchanmen, 367 a cultural trend of pessimism and
skepticism towards the supposed gains of the Spanish transition. The disenchantment recognized
that many of the injustices and widespread corruption that occurred during the dictatorship had
continued under the democracy. As I explore in the following chapter, this cultural trend would
only continue as the democracy progressed. The late 1970s and early 1980s were, in many ways,
a continuation of Francoism as the logics of the regime adhered in the new forms of governance.
This is unsurprising because the technocratic middle class of the late Franco regime in the 1960s
and 1970s had laid the groundwork for the emergence of the culture industry (including its
apparently dissident or counterculture forms such as la movida madrileña), which was closely tied
to the state. Likewise, there is an ambigo ndecen in Almoda film. Unlike he
oliical mobiliaion and oigh ejecion of Fancoim of he lef (oge) hee i a ceain
ambivalence and at times a fetihiaion of ahoiaian fom (fo eamle ih Lci and Qei
return to literal and figurative authoritarian fathers). Yet this contradiction is also inherent to
democracy, in that it inevitably restricts its own freedom and devolves into less democratic forms.

366 McDonogh, Siaioni Sace, 77.
367 Gallero, Sólo se vive una vez, 313.

147
Turns and returns are indeed inherent to democratic formations. Democracy, as Derrida writes
ha ala been icidal. 368

368 Derrida, Rogues, 33.

148

Chapter 4
Mapping the Disenchantment:
Erratic Wandering in lex de la Iglesias El día de la bestia

Eo the deviation from a route, a departure of principles is bound to such wandering. As an
ac of naigaion on a deio coe, i imlie ambling, oaming, and een going aa.

Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion

Introduction

If the 1980s were largely seen as a period of cultural effervescence and celebration in which
he ci of Madid laed a cenal ole, b he 1990 Sain caial eened a fa moe
pessimistic landscape. As Allinson observes, the hedonistic youth culture of the 80s had shifted in
tone by the 1990s. While the attitude of presentism a ominen chaaceiic of Jameon
cultural logic of postmodernism continued from one decade to the next, drug addiction and the
AIDS epidemic had taken their toll on the euphoric sensibilities of the 1980s.369 This was no longer
the city that Almodóvar had portrayed in Labyrinth of passions a he old mo imoan
city, a city everyone came to and where anhing cold haen. 370 Yet despite their sometimes
celebao chaace, Almoda eal film had alead ignaled a ceain ambialence oad
the political landscape of the 1980s, as argued in the previous chapter. Casting Madrid as a city of
global imoance and endle oibili, Almoda admi, a an ionical idea, of coe, b
one hich man eole, ho aed omoing Madid a if i eall a he old mo

369 Allinon, The Concion of Yoh in Sain in he 1980 and 1990, 267.
370 Almodóvar, Strauss, and Baignères, Almodóvar on Almodóvar, 23.

149
imoan ci, ook e eiol. 371 However, the utopian promise of the democracy for
which the modern city of Madrid had served as a potent metaphor in much of the cultural
production of the early 1980s had deviated from its course. And if the political ambivalence of
the movida period signaled the beginnings of the so-called democratic disenchantment or
desencanto, this sentiment had become more generalized by the 1990s. Indeed, by the 1990s,
Madid ee had anfomed fom a ehoic cene of aniion and oge ino a mch
more dystopian landscape.
This more pessimistic vision of the capital became a trend in the cultural production of the
1990. Fo eamle, Mono Amendi Historias del Kronen (Stories from the Kronen 1995),
baed on Jo ngel Maa noel of he ame name, follo he moemen of mid dle-class
oh hogho he ci in a eing ha Diana Palad ha chaaceied a an anachic
doia. 372 For Palardy, the film illustrates the hedonistic behavior of 1990s youth culture which
challenged authority in destructive (and often self-destructive) ways that were ultimately anarchic
as opposed to anarchistic.373 Indeed, instead of the progress and possibility signaled by the earlier
spatial movements of the figures of the movida, Historias del Kronen illustrates Sain moal and
cultural stagnation in a landscape characterized by globalied caialim. One of he film mo
well-known scenes occurs when the characters hang from their arms on the Juan Bravo bridge in
a dangerous drunken game of chicken, their feet dangling over the traffic of the Castellana roadway
below. The scene provides a visual metaphor for the way in which, despite their constant

371 Almodóvar, Strauss, and Baignères, 23.
372 Palad, Falling hogh he Cack, 88.
373 Palardy, 82.

150
movement, many Spanish subjects (particularly the younger generation and the working classes)
fond hemele hanging aic in Sain h towards global postmodernity.374
In anohe doic iion, Alejando Amenba hille, Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes,
1997) feae a memoable iion of Madid famo Gan Va , one of he ci mo iconic
thoroughfares. In this opening sequence, the camera slowly tracks back to reveal the protagonist,
alone in the desolate expanse of the Gran Vía. The street has been emptied of all people and
vehicles, transforming this familiar commercial zone into an unsettling and uncanny cityscape.
Jameson argues that the architecture of postmodernism reproduces the fragmentation and
alienation effected by the economic parameters of global capitalism. If, as Jameson claims, space
(as opposed to time) becomes a structuring category of cultural language and psychic experience
in the postmodern period, the postmodern subject finds themselves alienated and adrift within this
architectonic landscape.375 Madid Gan Va i a nomall -bustling landmark street, which often
ee a a ial necdoche fo he enie ci and and a a mbol of Madid economic
success and cultural vibrancy in the 20th century. Yet in Amenba film he ola oi ie
is transformed into a dystopian scene of desolation and loss.
In his 1995 film, El día de la bestia (The Day of the Beast), director Álex De la Igelsia also
presents a dystopian vision of the end of the world. Giant hooved beasts, neo-fascist racist death
squads, rampant social inequality, the invasion of ideological and racial others, unbridled
consumerism, and the capitalist saturation of the mass media; these are the signs of the end that
aae Sain caial. The film nocnal old of nchecked cime and iolen capitalism

374 This image is reminiscent of a scene from El día de la bestia in which the characters also find
themselves suspended. They cling to the billboard advertising on the side of the Cine Capitol,
hanging fom hei am a hei fee dangle aboe Madid Gan Vía.
375 Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, 16.

151
certainly seems apocalyptic, even without the addition of supernatural elements and satanic
symbolism. However, in the film, these supernatural elements can be seen as a distorted mirror
eflecing back he gim ealiie of Sain democaic ransition, which was achieved through its
full integration into logic of postmodern capitalism.
This chapter analyzes the dystopian vision of El día de la bestia, which takes place in a
gritty, post-modern Madrid plagued by terrorism, economic stagnation, unemployment and drug
addiction. The film, a self-oed aanic comed, ell he o of a Bae ie, Fahe
Ángel Berriatúa (played by Álex Angulo), who deciphers the key to the biblical apocalypse of San
Juan to learn that the anti-Christ will be born in Madrid on Christmas eve. The action of the film
revolves around discovering the precise location where the birth will occur. To aid him in his quest,
Berriatúa enlists a heavy metal rocker named José Maria (Santiago Segura) and a phony television
clairvoyant who calls himself Professor Cavan (Armando de Raza). However, the humor of the
film revolves around a series of misreadings, in which Berriatúa misinterprets or misunderstands
a set of signs or symbols. Indeed, many of the signs that the priest reads as indicating the emergent
apocalypse are in fact signs of the reemegence of facim in democaic Sain. Like Almoda
early films from the movida analyzed in the preceding chapter, El día de la bestia is critical of its
contemporary political and economic cene and e fail o ake oliical ide. In fac, he film
ambiguity in this regard seems to encourage a double misreading, in that the use of humor and
drug content make any unequivocal reading of the film impossible. The film is full of semantic
miscues, both within the narrative as a comedic device, but also as a metafilmic device that
undermines any claims to truth. Instead the film puts forward a practice of error and errancy that
sketches, if not a version of utopia, a heterotopic alternative to the dystopian present. In this sense,

152
errancy becomes a mode for charting the remnants and reinscriptions of Francoism by attending
to the necessarily fragmented and distorted geography of duress.

Dystopian Democracy
These cinematic landscapes of Madrid are dystopic in so much as they are anti-utopic. As I argued
in Chapter Two following Muñoz, utopias are always worlds to come. Derived from the Greek ou-
topias, or not-places, utopias indicate spaces beyond the present. Dystopias then are the spaces of
here and now. Mo concealiaion of oia conain a oibili fo ocial elaion
through the erosion of boundaries. Dystopias must then foreclose the potential for relation and
reify boundaries. The subjects of a dystopia are lost within it, dispossessed of political will in a
landscape that is at once familiar and unfamiliar. For, according to Moreiras Menor, the subjects
of 1990s Spain found themselves dispossessed of political will, but not as a result of an
authoritarian regime. On the contrary, this dispossession was coupled with the weakening of the
state occasioned by the growth of multinational corporations.376 Moreover, Sain omoden
period did not imply a succession to the modernity of the dictatorship that came before it. Instead,
one structure is superimposed upon the other, introducing new formations through which the older
characteristics are often still discernible. Postmodernism introduces a prism effect, which allows
for the copresence of multiple forms of power which may operate simultaneously.377
Accoding o Moeia Meno cenal agmen in Cultura herida, the death of Franco
left a lack that Spanish society attempted to substitute with the political and cultural processes of
the transition to democracy. As described in the preceding chapter, during the 1980s the state

376 Moreiras Menor, Cultura herida, 24.
377 Stoler discusses this phenomenon through the Foucauldian analytic of the prism. Stoler,
Duress, 29.

153
invested heavily in (and often appropriated the momentum of) existing cultural movements such
a he moida in an effo o efom he con naional image. A he ime, Sain a engaged
in the collective production of a new national identity as a liberal and democratic country that was
poised to enter the European Economic Community by signing of the Treaty of Maastricht in
1992.378 This same year Spain hosted a series of high-profile international events: Madrid was
named a Eoean Clal Caial, he Olmic ee celebaed in Bacelona, and he Wold
Fair took place in Sevilla, hile he incenennial celebaion of Colmb oage ook lace
across the country. Thus, just as the Spanish transition period was invested in distancing itself from
the period of the dictatorship, it also had turned a utopian gaze towards 1992 as the date in which
a collective project would be realized. For this reason, Moreiras Menor cites 1992 as the
clminaing ea of he collecie efomaion of Sain ideni. Afe hi ea had aed, he
argues, the lost object shifts from the dictatorship to the sudden absence of a collective project and
the rupture between the State and culture.379 The 1990s thus brought a double loss, both that of
Franco Spain and the loss of the democratic promise.
Hoee, hi collecie ojec of efoming Sain s identity did not necessarily imply a
departure from the cultural projects of the dictatorship. As noted in Chapter Two, the regime had
alead aken gea ain o eaiclae Sain naional ideni a i oened he econom o
foreign capital beginning in the 1950s with the diplomatic apertura and the promotion of
inenaional oim nde he famo logan Sain i diffeen. The logan imlied ha Sain
perceived difference that is, both the unusual permanence of its authoritarian regime in the
geographical context of Western Europe and its uneven development compared to many of the so-

378 Moreiras Menor, Cultura herida, 186.
379 Moreiras Menor, 25.

154
called developed nations was precisely what made the country attractive for foreign investment
and a reason to promote international tourism.380 It implied that, in eence, Sain aicla
process of modernization had resulted in the preservation of a unique national culture that was
exotic for visitors from more industrialized nations, and posters often featured national tropes such
as bullfighters or flamenco dancers. Thus the post-transition initiatives ha econceied Sain
national identity should be understood as an intensification of the modernizing and globalizing
processes already in place at least since the late 1950s. Indeed, while post-Franco Spain anxiously
distanced itself from many of the qualities that had made it singular in Europe, the slogan continued
to be used well into the democracy.
However, as Helen Graham points out, after the death of Franco these processes occurred
at an ever-more eaggeaed ace, odcing a eigo -indcing omodeni ideni. 381
Indeed, in turning away from the past and rejecting many of the nationalistic tropes of the
dictatorship, the democratic project had launched the country into global postmodernity without a
familiar national framework. Th ih Sain inenaionaliaion came a caaohic lo of
national cultural specificity. Spain was subsumed into the logic of a global capitalism, shedding
i Sanihne, in a global old chaaceied b synchronicity. Moreover, Spanish subjects
found themselves subsumed within the market logic through the expansion of mass
communication and advertising. While artists and writers had been experimenting with
postmodern aesthetics before Fanco deah , the political and cultural processes of the transition
implemented postmodernism at the scale of mass culture as evidenced by the generalized departure

380 Lia Elena Delgado d, La nación singular explores and ultimately dismantles the idea
of Spanish exceptionality.
381 Graham, The Politics of 1992, 410.

155
from national narratives, the rejection of the past, and the erosion of political institutions by global
caial. Tha i, in Jameon em, Sain had eneed he clal logic of caialim.
The concion of Sain naional ideni in he 20 th century was intimately linked with
the construction of space. As I wrote in Chapter One, the dictatorship first constructed monumental
achiece ha ecalled Sain imeial dominance a eemlified b he Valle of he Fallen.
Later, the regime shifted into the production of monolithic structures that reflected the power of
Spanish national capital as exemplified by the Edificio España, which I analyze in Chapter Five.
For its part, the democracy also ambitiously used the construction of space to put forward a
particular vision, which shifted from these earlier national narratives to reflect the sleek seduction
of global postmodernity as exemplified by the Puerta de Europa (Gate of Europe) development,
one of he cenal filming locaion fo de la Igleia film. Yet it many ways, this democratic
project was not so distant from the architecture of the regime. For one, all three of these examples
manifest an exaggerated verticality, illustrating ho all bilding ma boh eflec and ecibe
cultural meaning in a perpetual dialogue between diverse constituencies, including architects,
politicians, and a viewing blic, among ohe. 382 Moreover, the Puerta de Europa is reminiscent
of the logic of the early planning initiatives of the Franco regime such as the Vía de Europa, the
proposed project for the Castellana roadway in the Plan Bidagor. This roadway served as the main
route for traffic to and from the north toward France and is, perhaps not coincidently, the present
day location of the Puerta de Europa. The roadway and the so-called gate connect Spain both
geographically and symbolically to European history and identity.
Despite these links however, the construction of the Puerta de Europa was also a visible
manifestation of the shifting cultural meaning during the late 1980s and 1990s, as the country

382 Schleier, Skyscraper Cinema, viii.

156
validated its social and political transformations through architecture.383 The Puerta de Europa is
also known as the Torres KIO (KIO Towers). A project undertaken by the Kuwaiti Investment
Office (KIO) in 1989, the towers were built amid the move in the late 1980s toward neoliberal
economics, which involved the privatization and internationalization of Sain economy.
According to Lopez and Rodríguez, hee change in Sain econom ogh o oiion Madid
as a city of global finance on par with London or Manhattan.384 These aspirations culminated into
policy with the economic and trade agreements of the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, which formed
he Eoean Union. A Gaham emind , ahe han an abac democaic ideal, ha Sain
has joined is a specific political and economic entity which has at its centre (both commercially
and ideologicall) he make. 385 In reality, the shift toward neoliberalism resulted in the
explosion of large multinational corporations and financial entities and initially provided a massive
boost the economy.
However, according to Moreiras Menor, the cultural production of the so-called
disenchantment years represented a dismal view of reality, in which subjects were at once in
possession of a certainty of truth obtained through the oversaturation of the mass media and in a
place of uncertainty in that they were isolated from history.386 A Moeia Meno age, el
sujeto se percibe en un espacio totalmente incierto o desconocido y con la total certeza de hallarse,
aún siendo un extrañado y, en alguna medida un extranjero, en posesión de la verdad (the subject
perceives themselves in a totally uncertain and unknown place with the total certainty finding
themselves, despite being strange and in some measures a stranger, in possession of the truth).387

383 Comiello, Fom Planning o Deign, 201.
384 Rodige Loe, La cidad global o la nea cenalidad de Madid, 66.
385 Gaham, The Poliic of 1992, 411.
386 Moreiras Menor, Cultura herida, 24.
387 Moreiras Menor, 24.

157
This subjective dislocation, leads to what Moreiras Menor em an acing o a eeal
displacement from horror to violence, from affect to action. In other words, from the period of the
transition to the realization of the democratic project in 1992, Spanish society shifted from a
utopian to a dystopian imaginary, from an idealized future to an alienating present. The Torres
KIO serve as the frame for the violence of European integration and as a material setting for the
cultural, economic, and political processes for the internationalization of Spain into Europe. 388

A Quixotic Apocalypse
I am not the first to point out the El día de la bestia obio aallel o Migel de Ceane
Don Quixote. Many critics have commented on the intertextuality with the Quixote including
Marsha Kinder (1997), Barry Jordan and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas (1998), Malcolm Compitello
(1999), Nathan Richardson (2012), and Thomas Deveny (2012). Indeed, de la Iglesia employs the
ame comic deice a Ceane; he diconini beeen Beiaa fanaic imaginaion and
the reality of daily experience pokes fun at the foolish credulity and simplicity of the protagonist.
These fantasies become laughable because we as the audience are able to recognize that the signs
and symbols of everyday life and popular culture are misread by the naïve priest.
De la Igleia himelf ha commened on he aallel o Ceane noel, noing one
marked difference between his film and the Quixote. The conclusion to the film, he argues, is
diffeen: los gigantes sí que existen, lo que pasa es que están disfrazados de molinos, dispuestos
a partirnos la cara con un bate de béisbol en cuanto nos descuidemos (he gian do ei, ha
happens is that they are disguised as windmills, ready to bust our heads in with a baseball bat the

388 Moreiras Menor, 265.

158
moment we let down our guard).389 While Cervantes inserts a narrator that insists on a narrative
eali ha clahe ih Don Qioe iion of gian (A he ee alking, he a hi of
fo of he indmill fond in ha conide, he naao ie), 390 De la Iglesia insists on a
eali ha align ih Beiaa. In ohe od, de la Igleia quixotic visions contain a darker,
moe eimiic h; hee ae eal dange ndeling Beiaa delion of iolence.
In making the statement, de la Iglesia clarifies his authorial intentions and imposes a
reading of the end. Yet the film itself seems to produce multiple readings and multiple modes of
interpretation. That is, the film does not only restage or rehearse the Quixote as a way of calling
aenion o he iolence in Sain embace of omodeni and he einciion of i faci
formations, as previous critics and de la Iglesia himself have argued to varying degrees. It also
uses a quixotic figure to inform a hermeneutics of misreading and constructs an errant geography,
charting these seemingly violent aberrations as fixtures in the national landscape. For Don Quixote
is a novel that stages misreadings in a comic manner, but also in a way that draws attention to the
arbitrary relations between signs and to the semantic slippages of language itself. In effect, Don
Quixote destabilizes language as a univocal system. And the film employs the figure of the
ingenioso hidalgo to destabilize meaning, to interrogate the imposition of a single view of reality,
and ultimately, to sketch a map that questions the finitude authoritarian formations.
The film aallel o he noel ae ie clea. ngel Beiaa i a Jei ie and
theologian who has spent his life buried in eschatological texts, oblivious to the realities of modern
Spain, just as the hidalgo, who famously read chivalric noel o mch ha ih oo lile lee
and oo mch eading hi bain died , caing him o loe hi mind. 391 And like Quixote,

389 Cited in Moreiras Menor, 266.
390 Cervantes, Don Quixote, 58.
391 Cervantes, 21.

159
Berriatúa then embarks on a dogged and unrealistic quest to save the world, a world that has
changed and whose symbols no longer resemble those of his books. Both Quixote and Berriatúa
disastrously misread the world around them. Quixote insists that the giants are windmills, while
Beiaa ini ha Madid o -moden Pea de Eoa i he Deil emle. Boh heoe s
alo hae adeaie of eionable eience; Don Qioe adea i he magician Fin,
hile Beiaa i he deil himelf. And boh ae ball beaen oe he coe of hei
misadventures.
Beiaa fi moe i o ael fom hi co nservative monastery in the Basque Country
to the urban space of Madrid. As Richardson notes, this move from the traditional space of
countryside to the modern (or postmodern) space of the city does not necessarily imply progress.392
In many ways, Berriatúa eeience mio he naie paleto experience of films such as La
cuidad no es para mi (The City is Not for Me, 1966) discussed in Chapter Two, which ultimately
critiques the cruel realities of the modern city in favor of the strong social bonds found in the
countryside. Upon arriving in Madrid, Berriatúa meets José Maria, the clueless Sancho Panza that
will become his faithful sidekick. José Maria is a self-decibed Satánico from Carabanchel, a
peripheral working-class neighborhood. Yet he is hardly a Satanist as Berriatúa believes. Instead,
José Maria uses the label to identify himself as part of heavy metal culture. Satánico is the name
of a local metal group whose music and merchandise José Maria mindlessly consumes.
Nevertheless, the unlikely pair will set out on a quixotic quest to kill the anti-Christ and stop the
apocalypse, saving Madrid and presumably, the world.
Don Qioe i a heo of naie and iiona ideal boh ihin and beond Ceane
noel. The em ioic ha come o mean a ene of eaagan enhiam fo nealiable,

392 Richadon, The Deil in he Deail, 328.

160
imacical, and iiona ideal and alo he faile o ealie hee ideal, hich eoke he
ioic image of an ine, foolih and goee hmani. 393 It is this latter description of the
fool that functions as a comedic device. At the same time, Don Quixote has come to represent
superior moral and spiritual values, a recuperation of the chivalry of the Golden Age.394 Of course
this shared unconditional faith and the confusing of book with world is what marks Berriatúa as a
quixotic figure. Berriatúa is a man that falls victim to a moment of change, just as does Don
Quixote.
The theologian is oblivious to the realities of contemporary Spain. As he admits in the film,
he has been engrossed in eschatological study for 25 years that is, since before the transition to
democracy. Indeed, Berriatúa may have remained oblivious to the changes brought by the
aniion eiod becae, a a Jei ie, he eemlifie ho he egime a ied structures of
power quietly remained in the democracy. Indeed, the Catholic Church had controlled education
in Francoist Spain and although education was secularized in the democracy, the church (and the
Jesuit order in particular) continued to educate a large part of the Spanish elite in private schools.395
The idea of the apocalypse is linked to the idea of reading signs and of uncovering truth.
Aside from its meaning of a great catastrophe or disaster, the word apocalypse refers to a revelation
of truth, unveiling from the Greek apo-kalyptein, to un-cover. According to literary theorist,
Frank Kermode, the apocalypse depends on an imaginatively recorded past and imaginatively

393 Britt Arredondo, Quixotism, 12.
394 The figure of Don Quixote became a symbol of moral and spiritual regeneration especially for
hinke of he Geneaion of 98 ch a Jo Oega Gae and Migel de Unamno, ding
Sain lo of emie a he n o f the nineteenth century. Despite the parodic nature of the
Quixote allegory in this film, is interesting the Quixote figure should return as a moral savior at
this national moment of identity crisis a century later.
395 Aled, Edcaional Polic in a Chang ing Socie, 320 25.

161
ediced fe ha ojec i nea, nae aen on o hio. 396 These figurative predictions
can be taken literally, making the apocalypse an exercise in reading signs. For example,
eschatology relies on symbols that derive their significance from a unitary system and understood
to be an ordered series of events that ends in a final Sabbath. It is through reading or
misreadingign ha Beiaa aie a he ane o he film cenal eion: Whee ill
the antichrist be born? Berriatua first decodes the apocalypse using a complex Trithemius cipher,
derived from the cryptography treatises of the early modern monk Johannes Trithemius. The
Basque theologian then finds signs in popular culture (heavy metal music and concerts), mass
media (eleiion adeiemen, Caan ho and book), and adeiing (billboad and the
flyers he receives in the streets) that ultimately lead him to the location where the Antichrist will
be born. However, this kind of apocalypse, the decoding of signs, is what Kermode calls naive
apocalypticism and what Slavoj Zizek refers to as Chiian fndamenali, defined a eading
the apocalypse in strictly biblical terms, searching (and finding) signs that the final battle between
Chi and he anichi i nigh. 397 In the naïve apocalypse, the apocalyptic event is always
located as imminent and national, convenient to a specific time and space.
Uncovering this apocalypse is thus a task for a semiotic detective. Yet Berriatua quickly
seizes upon meaning, ignoring polysemy either as a result of his ignorance of contemporary
popular culture or dogmatic blindness. For example, Berriatua seizes upon the demonic symbols
used by heavy metal bands, but is unable to understand that these symbols represent an aggressive,
nihilistic counterculture proclamation and instead misreads them as evidence of demonic activity.
Bertiatua is drawn into the record shop where José Maria works because the shop window displays

396 Kermode, The Sense of an Ending, 8, 14.
397 Zizek, Living in the End Times, 337.

162
clichéd death metal symbols pentagrams, a demonic doll, and satanic horns but he is unable to
grasp that heavy metal re-articulates these satanic symbols as a form of cultural transgression.
Berriatua conflates signifier and signified, seizing upon a denotative meaning of these objects and
understanding them to represent Satan himself as he searches for a message from the devil in metal
music. In a comic illustration of the multiple levels of misunderstanding that take place, Berriatúa
has phonetically transcribed the names of famous English-language metal bands Napalm Death
and ACDC a Naalm De and Hace de Ce [Fig. 5.1]. Berriatúa is already using the wrong
system of phonemes, divorcing the letters from their meaning. That is, his reading is already a
misreading.

Fig. 5.1: Berriatúa phonetically transcribes the names of famous metal bands

For Foucault, Don Quixote's escapades form a boundary: they mark the end of mimetic
resemblance between signs and their meanings and contain the beginnings of new semantic
relations.398 Don Qioe i a heo of he ame a a ime hen ign ae becoming dioced fom

398 Foucault, The Order of Things, 46.

163
their meanings.399 The hidalgo represents the passage from a renaissance worldview based on
similitude and clarity to a baroque worldview based on representation and polysemy. In short, Don
Qioe madne i a el of he e of modenim . He misreads because he seizes upon
primitive resemblance and is incapable of distinguishing difference. For Quixote, the world of his
book and the world around him are the same. Unable to recognize the gap between word and world,
Quixote is shown to be mad. Like he knigh ean, ho m fnih oof and oide he
indbiable ign ha [hi book] ae elling he h, o Beiaa eache hi old fo ign
that match his h, hi aocale. Boh ae aked ih flfill[ing] he omie of he book b
transforming reality into a sign of conformity with this promise that is, by reading the material
world as a text.400 Postmodernism does not present a new rupture, but is instead an intensification
of modernism. As Jameson proposed, the close relation between schizophrenic language and the
postmodern experience of time as a perpetual present results in discontinuities and
fragmentation.401
Yet in demonstrating the irreducibility of signifier to signified, and the failure of language
a a niocal em, Ceane Quixote also posits a paradigm through which to question reading
and perception itself. For Don Quixote is not all mad. The knight errant fluctuates between reason
and unreason, producing eloquent speeches and reasoned arguments in what Cervantes called
lcid ineal. 402 The ingenioso hidalgo is at once a madman and a visionary. And like Quixote,
Berriatúa blindly seizes upon a minor detail, and crafts a hermeneutics of misreading by reading

399 Foucault, 46.
400 Foucault, The Order of Things, 47.
401 Jameon, Pomodenim and Conme Socie, 118.
402 Cervantes, Don Quixote, 556.

164
and constructing meaning from the text of city around him. As Foucault reminds us, in madness,
each man is reminded of his truth.403
Like the enduring Manchegan before him, Berriatúa is also perceived as a madman as he
searches his world for signs that match his book. No one else sees the signs that he sees. In fact,
Berriatúa is only able to convince his sidekicks of the truth of his vision with the help of an LSD
trip. In addition to their comedic function, the drugs play a central role in the production of
meaning through misreading. When Professor Cavan and Jose Maria consume the LSD tabs, the
result is the annihilation of difference; suddenly resemblance actually becomes self-reflexive and
he ae finall able o ead Beiaa ign. I i onl afe he acid ake effec ha he deil
appears to them in the form of the satanic goat Baphomet. Here, the drug use introduces ambiguity
into the narrative to add another layer of misreading to the film. The appearance of demonic
ceae cold eihe be ead a he chaace collecie hallcinaion o a a naaie eali.
Whehe o no e choe o ead in o he ei of he aocale, he film ambigi make i t
easy to a form a misreading of any greater message that it might purport to have.

Drugged Semiotics
Aial Ronell age ha lieae i a dg, a he decibe, he hamacodeendenc ih
which literature has always been secretly associated as a sedative, as a cure, as escape conduit
o ehoiing bance, a mimeic oioning. 404 Berriatúa, and Quixote before him, are drug
addicts; their addiction to their books blinds them (or opens their eyes) as much as the acid trip.
These drugs, whether literary or chemical, produce misreadings. For Quixote, literature produces

403 Foucault, Madness and Civilization, 14
404 Ronell, Crack Wars, 11.

165
an altered mental state i die hi bain, in Ceane od causing him to perceive giants
as windmills. For Berriatúa and his sidekicks, the psychotropic LSD tablets allow them to perceive
a group of neo-fascist thugs as Satan himself in a collective hallucination. Notably, it is only after
conming he dg ha Beiaa idekick begin o inee he ign of hi aocale and
confim he ie (mi)eading. I would seem that drugs and literature both have the effect of
expanding the symbolic registers of their users or readers, ultimately leading them to question their
reality.
Labado Mnde eand on hi idea hen he age ha liea e ae dobl
dgged, in ha he oide a dgged eeience no j fo hei eade b fo hei ie. 405
Viewing poësis through a pharmacological lens, he posits that literary texts allow both the reader
and the writer to question the symbolic structures and, importantly, the material spaces into which
they are written. As he writes,
El texto drogado cuestiona su propia escritura. Se trata de un texto escrito desde un
no-lugar, desde un espacio inexistente, en tránsito, un texto que parece venir de un
más allá, pero que no duda al intentar establecer su comunicación de este lado de
la realidad. Es un texto de frontera, a caballo entre lo racional y lo lógico, entre lo
real y lo inexistente, un texto que quiere salir de la historia e instalarse en la utopía.

(The drugged text questions its own writing. It is a text written from a non-place,
from a nonexistent space, in transition, a text that seems to come from beyond, but
that does not doubt to establish a connection with this side of reality. It is a border
text, straddling the rational and the logical, between the real and the nonexistent, a
text that wants to take itself out of history and install itself in utopia.)406

The production of literary texts transports the writer to the realm of the imaginary, to a place
beyond the confines of the structured, symbolic spaces of the here and now. That is, texts may
transport their readers from dystopia to utopia. The text itself thus exists between these two spaces.

405 Labrador Méndez, Letras arrebatadas, 59.
406 Labrador Méndez, 58-59.

166
By reaching back as a missive from the beyond, it provides a bridge for the reader, a connection
to another place and time. Poësis thus provides lines of flight from established discursive realities
and points to alternate geographies. However, as I will show, these geographies are not necessarily
idyllic.
Labado Mnde d of he chemico -poetic imaginary of the Spanish transition
analyzes the widespread drug use among the poets and writers of transition-era counterculture, for
whom drug use constituted a negation of reality and thus a critique of that reality. For these writers,
el hastío, desengaño o descontento por lo real libra el deseo de su huída, de poder situarse más
allá de los límites de lo histórico ( the weariness, disillusion, and discontentment towards the real
creates a desire to escape from it, to situate themselves beyond the limits of history).407 Labrador
Méndez extends his study beyond what he describes as a small group of forgotten underground
poets, arguing that their drugged texts capture the deeper collective and auto destructive impulses
of the era, which would only become more generalized with the desencanto.
In framing the larger cultural processes of the transition through the figurative lens of
pharmacodependency, Labrador Méndez builds off of earlier work by Moreiras Menor and Vilarós
who also use metaphors derived from drug addiction to analyze the cultural politics of the
transition period. For example, to illustrate the shift from initial euphoria to disillusion and
desencanto, Moreiras Menor draws a comparison to the chemical effects of taking ecstasy.408 For
her part, Vilarós theorizes the death of Franco through the pharmacological narrative of withdrawal
o mono. Thi, a he decibe, a una adicción, un enganche simbólico y real, una
monumental cogida que produjo a su término encontradas y conflictivas reacciones (an addiction,

407 Labrador Méndez, 59.
408 Moreiras Menor, Cultura herida, 15.

167
a symbolic hook, a monumental fix that produced conflicting and conflictive reactions when it
ended). 409 These narratives of pharmacodependency resist the closure implied by the official
political narratives of the transition and the so-called pact of oblivion. The metaphors of drug
addiction also help to expand understandings of the somatic and affective consequences of
dictatorial duress. The description of withdrawal symptoms and the highs and lows of ecstasy
resonate with the way that modes of authoritarian dominance are materialized not just on the
landcae, b on he bod. Sole decibe de a a ee eeed, a obled condiion
borne in the body, a force exercised on muscles and mind. It may bear no immediately visible sign
or, alternatively, it may manifest in a weakened constitution and attenuated capacity to bear its
weight. 410 Dictatorial duress is thus entwined in a pharmacodependent logic, which exerts force
over the body and mind.
To be clear, drug use during the transition period extended beyond this figurative sense of
collective euphoria or withdrawal. Hallucinogens such as LSD had begun to appear in Spain in the
1960s, introduced by counterculture groups such as hippies and beats.411 And while drug use had
influenced the counterculture imaginary during the late Franco and the transition period, heroin
abuse had become widespread by the late 1970s. This resulted in a shift from the imagination of
psychedelic utopias to the instantiation of a deadly and nihilistic present. Through both moralizing
and sensationalist public discourse and aggressive policing, Francoism had tied drug use with

409 Vilarós, El mono del desencanto, 18.
410 Stoler, Duress, 7.
411 Ding he dicaohi, dg e a ciminalied nde he egime Ley de Peligrosidad
Social, which also criminalized homosexuality and vagrancy and was used to punish both moral
and political dissidence. The punishment for drug users involved interment in an insane asylum
and disciplinary therapy such as electroshock treatment, thereby reducing drug use to a form of
insanity, Labrador Méndez, Letras arrebatadas, 88-89.

168
delinquency. 412 This discursive and de facto criminalization was reactivated to combat the
expansion of heroin in the early democracy, illustrating how Francoism adhered in the governing
logic of the democracy well beyond the end of the Franco regime.
The pernicious effects of drug addiction and especially heroin addiction on Spanish
society of the transition are not to be discounted. The level of addiction reached such epidemic
proportions and the tragic loss of life was so great that Labrador Méndez has argued that it effected
el borrado de una buena parte de lo más granado de la primera generación de la democracia
española, de la muerte de gran porcentaje de sus individuos más preparados (the erasure of a large
part of the most distinguished among the first generation of the Spanish democracy through the
death of a large percentage of its most qualified individuals). 413 Shedding the romance of
avantgarde experimentation, Labrador Méndez reminds us that not everyone survived the
transition period. Thus while the figurative theorization of collective withdrawal may imply a
resistance to closure, the real effects of the drug resulted in an erasure of the present.
Still, drug use played a central role in the cultural production of the movida, a movement
hich eimagined Madid ocial geogah a I aged in Chae Thee. A he ominen
cultural figure of the movida madrileña and editor of La Luna magazine, Borja Casani writes,
dg ae a ehicle fo he ci maeial, clal, and ocial cha nge.:
La modificación de la ciudad es una modificación obligatoriamente psicotrópica,
drogadicta. ... Por ello defiendo las drogas. Forman parte de la aventura
individual, aparte de que son liberadoras. El proceso de desinhibición de una
sociedad tan mojigata como la española habría tardado siglos en producirse, si no
hubiera sido con drogas.

The modification of the city is necessarily a psychotropic, drug-addicted
modificaion. Fo hi eaon I defend dg. The fom a a of indiidal

412 Labrador Méndez, Letras arrebatadas, 122.
413 Labrador Méndez, 144.

169
adventure, aside from being liberating. The process of disinhibition of a society as
de a Sain old hae aken ea o occ if i een fo dg. 414

Casani argues that any modification of the city first must occur psycho-tropically literally,
through a turning of mind. The process of disinhibition leads to social and cultural change;
therefore, the turning of the mind also effects a material reality. This is to say that as much as cities
are built with steel or bricks, they are constructed from the imagination and ideas. Drugs, and
drugged texts, thus give access to new physical territories.
Berriatúa and his group begin to understand Madrid as a new physical territory,
constructing an apocalyptic geography through their misreadings. In this sense, the drugged
readers leave behind their present reality to approach another world or another dimension. In its
departure from the quotidian and the real, drugged literature is often determined by a lexicon of
travel, of wandering, of tripping; as Labrador Méndez notes a la retórica de la errancia se le
superpone la retórica del viaje: exploraciones de mundos fantásticos, territorios inexistentes,
cidade iniible abimo ineioe (the rhetoric of errancy superimposes the rhetoric of
travel: explorations of fantastic worlds, inexistent territories, invisible cities, and interior
abysses).415 Through an interrogation of the work of symbolization, altered mental states allow
access to alternate epistemologies, other ways of understanding and remaking geography. While
these territories often take the form of a utopia Wonderland, Xanadú, etcetera they may also
take on the dystopian dimensions of a bad trip.
The film final cle offe an illaion of ch dgged emioic hogh he mieading
of space and the construction of an errant geography. This final piece of evidence confirming the
location of the birth of the anti-Christ is discovered by Professor Cavan. By comparing drawings

414 Gallero, Sólo se vive una vez, 19.
415 Labrador Méndez, Letras arrebatadas, 56. My emphasis.

170
purported to be from the middle ages together with contracts that he claims were signed by the
devil and photographs of a dubious exorcism he performed, the charlatan discovers that devil
consistently signs his name with a chevron, the hoof mark signifier for Satan. Of course, Cavan
had admitted early in the film that he is not a professor, nor is he an expert in the occult. His
television show is an entertainment spectacle, part of a larger mass media phenomenon. And
Beiaa i one of he man ecao caiaed b he ecacle of Caan eleiion ho, La
Zona Oscura. Televisions appear constantly throughout the film in shop windows, in every home
they enter, in the bar, even in a kiosk in the natural space of the Buen Retiro Park. Television, it
would seem, has become a fixture and a fix in every sphere of Spanish society, providing a
means of escape and allowing citizens to ignore the material realities of the democracy.
Despite his acknowledged complicity within this spectacle (or perhaps as a way to
exculpate himself from it), Cavan still pieces together these signs he knows to be flawed or false
into a larger symbolic system. Thus (mis)undeanding he cheon o be Saan ignifie, Caan
searches for and finds an idenical ign in Madid geogah. A Caan eaon, if he
Chiian chch i bil in he fom of a co (he ign fo Chi), hen he deil chch m
be built in he fom of a cheon (he ign fo Saan). Thi lead he go o Madid omoden
Puerta de Europa, the monumental business complex which was under construction during the
making of the film [Fig. 5.2]. Indeed, the central components of the complex, a set of twin towers,
are curiously erected in a chevron-like position. Richardson has fittingly described the towers as
being eeced in a ae of eeal collae. 416 The semi-collapsed form of the towers presages
their figurative collapse amid a corruption scandal during the recession of 1993, as well as the

416 Richardson, The Deil in he Deail: Uban Sace and he Persistence of the Sacred in El
Da de La Beia, 328.

171
larger economic collapse of the 2008, for which the towers could be read as an early symptom.
The oe leaning fom ae a ial figaion of he economic collae hailed b he aio
corruption scandals during their construction, including the infamous Urbanor case which
imlicaed ome of Sain lage eal eae mogl ogehe ih he Banco Cenal (Cenal
Bank).

Fig. 5.2: The twin towers of the Puerta de Europa approached by Berriatúa, José Maria, and
Professor Cavan. The monument to Calvo Sotelo is between the towers.

In the reduction of signs to their resemblances, this scene of meaning-making is a prime
example of quioic madne. Caan concion of an ean geogah ma be dien b e -
induced paranoia, by an LSD trip, or by his displacement or dislocation ihin Sain omoden
(post)national narrative. That is, the material space of the city also produces a certain form of
madness and errancy. The relationship between space and psychosis is not new. In fact, Sebastián
de Covarrubias affirmed in his 1611 Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, hile he
etymology of loco might drive a sane man to madne, i fi and foemo meaning el

172
comes from the Latin locus. 417 However, the psychic effect of the city is intensified in
postmodernity, in which the subject is dislocated from social or national structures of belonging.
Th hile Caan dgged mieading/eelaion doe no faihfll econc Madid
material eali, he mieading doe faihfll mio Madid geogah of malice and
corruption and thus provides a productive critique. In mieading he ace a he deil emle,
in taking windmills for giants, the quixotic trio have lost their minds. Yet there is also a truth to
hi ioic iion, in hich, folloing de la Igleia claim, he gian ae in fac digied a
windmills. Indeed, the structures of evil are disguised behind the glossy banality of postmodern
capital.

An Errant Geography
Beiaa i no iml a bad eade. He i, in Ein Gaff Ziin em, a blind eade: [a] eade
who desperately close to the text is attuned to its marks of invisibility, to those elements of
neadabili ha ee a a demand fo moe eading. 418 Berriatúa is so closely attuned to the
text of the city in his search for signs that his misreading points to what has become occluded or
oelooked in Madid ban landcae and eeal he genealogie of dicaoial de.
Following Derrida, Paul de Man, Jorge Luis Borges, and others, Graff Zivin argues for a
deconstructive, anarcheological eading acice ha engage ih he blind o, eo, of he
liea e in ode o eoe hei elaion o he e (niing, ninenional) inigh. 419
Thi eading he age, i a a o manee ihin and beond he cloe of ehical and

417 Bochoff, On he Place of Madne, Deiance, and Eccenici in Don Qijoe, 3.
418 Graff Zivin, Anarchaeologies, 5.
419 Graff Zivin, 128.

173
oliical hinking nde neolibealim. 420 Anarcheological reading, in my view, can be extended
beyond literary texts as a practice for identifying and engaging with alternate genealogies.
Misreading thus becomes an epistemological tool in the recognition of authoritarian durabilites,
for their presence is often difficult to discern through more conventional ways of looking and
modes of analysis. As Stoler has aged, he analical ool e e o idenif eihe hioical
continuities or, alternatively, profound ruptures from the past may be obstacles rather than
oening. 421 The task then, in Sole od , i o ain o ene beond he moe eail
idenifiable fom. 422 The film hemeneic of eo allo boh fo a ecogniion and a
destabilization of the established symbolic structures of the dictatorship which have remained so
deeply engrained in Spanish culture, education, and other sectors.
Error is closely tied to notions of space and movement. As Bruno has argued. An eo
implies a departure from a defined path; the semiotics of the term incorporates the notion of erring,
o andeing. 423 The film employs the figure of the errant knight to destabilize the symbolic
structures of fascism and ultimately, to sketch a map that questions the finitude authoritarian
formations. Errant reading thus becomes a mode for charting and contesting the permanence of
Francoism, these effects of which become discernible through a psychogeographic mode of
eading ha aend o hei aial, dioed, and iecemeal aliie, o neen and inangible
sedimentations that defy easy access in the face of the comforting contention that there really is no
imeial ode of hing. 424

420 Graff Zivin, 17.
421 Stoler, Duress, 5.
422 Stoler, 6.
423 Bruno, Atlas of Emotion.
424 Stoler, Duress, 26.

174
De la Igleia film hink hogh he cene of eali ha occie he blic ace in
he 1990, 425 and it would seem that the filming locations were chosen with great care in order to
visualize the shift from Francoist modernity to democratic postmodernity. Near the beginning of
he film, Beiaa b fom hi monae in he Bae Con deoi him in concion
ie of he Pea de Eoa a Madid Plaa de Ca illa. The Plaza is filled with indigent beggars
and street performers while graffiti seemingly covers every visible surface. The camera slowly
pans over a sign announcing the Puerta de Europa construction project and containing a simplified
depiction of the towers leaning towards each other to form a chevron. It is twilight when Berriatúa
arrives, and the scene is filmed in predominately low angle shots which provide emphasis for the
towers and construction cranes looming ominously in the background. Perhaps as a way to
visualize the twilight status of democratic optimism, all the film urban scenes are filmed at night
with the sole exception of the final scene in Retiro Park.
During the 1980s, this area around la Castellana began to replace the Gran Via as Madid
commercial and economic center. Drawing on Marshall Berman, Stephanie Gonick argues that the
eimagining of he Caellana one occed hogh a oce of ceaie decion ha ogh
to re-invent the future and obliterate the Francoist a nde he eigh of fenied
deelomen. 426 The deelomen along he Caellana eed a an aiclaion of he ci
aspirations as a cosmopolitan center of global finance. Yet as Compitello has convincingly argued,
paraphrasing David Harvey, thee anfomaion eed he logic of fleible accmlaion of
caial, in ha he eed he aim of ealh accmlaion, no an ocial objecie; in effec,
hee ne bilding eed he dicae of hman geed, no hman need. 427 Indeed for

425 Moreiras Menor, Cultura herida, 262.
426 Gonick, Making Madid Moden, 30.
427 Comiello, Fom Planning o Deign, 212.

175
Golnick hi deelomen eflec he hifing of hegemonic oe fom he old dicaoial egime
to a new regime of multinational corporations aided by neoliberal economic policies. 428 Berriatúa
will soon discover that the anti-Christ is to be born in this location within the emblematic and
conoeial Toe de Eoa, hee monmen o Sain neolibeal goh. Fo Comiello,
he oe eeen ha en ong in he hio of baniaion in Sain, a KIO eenall
pulled out of the project during the economic recession of 1993 amid bankruptcy and corruption
scandals.429 I i no coincidence ha De la Igleia Anichi i o be bon hee, in he hell of
these towers of capitalist corruption.
The postmodern urban development of the Castellana projected a certain image of
cosmopolitanism while attempting to cover over not just Francoist history as Gonick argues, but
to pave over the present inequalities of the democracy.430 Uon Beiaa aial o he ci , he
encounters the beggars, vagrants, and drug addicts who live on the streets in the city center. The
socially indigent and economically destitute continue to form a background motif throughout the
film. Imoanl, in he film finale, he ani -Christ will be born to a homeless Roma family
sleeping on cardboard boxes within the shells of the unfinished KIO towers. The Castellana
development sought to pave over this marginalization and to provide a new image for the area as
a business zone. In this sense, the postmodern development performs a similar hygienic function
to the dictatorship-era urban planning initiatives, which sought to erase the shantytowns at the
ci magin a elaboaed in Chae To. Incidenall, he idea of ocial hgiene i alo
reflected in the name of the film neofaci go, Limia Madid (Clean Madid), hich clean
he ci hogh ac of iolence. Thee imilaiie emind ha, in he od of Sole, he

428 Gonick, Making Madid Moden, 20 21.
429 Comiello, Fom Planning o Deign, 208.
430 Gonick, Making Madid Moden, 20.

176
geopolitical and spatial distribution of inequities cast across our world today are not simply
mimetic versions of earlier imperial incarnations but refashioned and sometimes opaque and
oblie eoking of hem. 431 These inequities are not an inadvertent effect of modernization,
but a fundamental means for furthering modern and postmodern forms of domination.
In both the democracy and dictatorship, the surface improvements implied by new urban
developments only serve to further produce social containment and enclosure. In democratic
Spain, the margins become visible in the center and are only further isolated by new development.
Labrador Méndez claims that developments like the Castellana zone create a wrapping or
encapsulamiento of marginalized urban denizens such as drug addicts. He argues that, Allí,
aislados del resto de la urbe por un cinturón policial, social y arquitectónico, se fueron
consumiendo a si mismos en el laberinto de un mundo a la deriva (There, isolated from the rest
of the city by a social, architectural, and policing belt, they consumed themselves in the labyrinth
of a world adrift).432 Thus the uneven development of Francoist modernity as visualized in films
such as La semana del asesino conined ino Sain democac; he abjec ill file hogh
these glossy façades of consumption and economic prosperity.
And just as the development of la Castellana struggled to erase elements of the cultural
maginaliaion ha occed in he ake of he oge of Sain democac, i ggled o
cover over the Francoist past it purported to leave behind. For the Torres KIO are just one part of
the monumental complex located at the Plaza de Castilla. To the south of the towers stands a
Francoist monument honoring the conservative right politician José Calvo Sotelo, a member of the
monarchist restoration party whose assassination in 1936 was a catalyst for the Nationalist

431 Stoler, Duress, 4 5.
432 Labrador Méndez, Letras arrebatadas, 130.

177
uprising.433 Alhogh he died befoe he milia iing, Calo Soelo deah marked a decisive
point for the Nationalists in the prelude to the uprising, leading them to embrace the politician as
a martyr for the Nationalist cause. The monument features a statue likeness of Calvo Sotelo
sculpted in granite by Carlos Ferreira, who also completed several sculptures for the Valley of the
Fallen. The politician is portrayed breaking a chain between his hands in a posture that exaggerates
his famously broad shoulders. Stone walls to either side of the statue allegorize his martyrdom
through carved reliefs. The statue sits over a fountain from which also rises a large triangular stone
mass shaped like the bow of a ship. Calvo Sotelo is positioned as the figurehead of this symbolic
ship rising from the waters. Thirty years after its inauguration, during the reconstruction of the
Plaza de Castilla in 1992, the monumental assemblage was dismantled, restored, and moved from
its position in the center of the plaza to its southern end in order to make space for the development
of the commercial zone.
El día de la bestia films the Calvo Sotelo monument in its current position at the southern
base of the Torres KIO [Fig 5.2]. As Jáuregui and Méndez have observed, both structures are
monuments to their eras, each projects a particular memory on the landscape.434 De la Iglesia
filmic framing of the architectural complex makes this comparison clear. The Calvo Sotelo
monument sits at the top of a flight of stairs and at the visual center of the chevron formed by the
towers. The allegorical carvings on either side of the statue duplicate the massive leaning forms of
the towers behind them while the sharp lines of the figurative ship neatly trace the negative space
beeen hem. Calo Soelo ae eem lage han ee filmed fom hi lo angle ho.

433 Another controversial memorial site, the street named for the martyrs of La Division Azul, the
regiment of Francoist troops who supported the Axis powers in the second world war, site sits
less than a half mile to the east of the plaza.
434 Jáuregui and Menéndez, Lo Que Nos Queda de Franco, 37.

178
Together the elements of he monmen fom a mbolic enance o he oed deil emle
for which the statue again forms a figurehead. To top it off, a star appears between the two towers,
apparently suspended as a Christmas decoration. In this final perversion of Christian iconography,
de la Iglesia recasts the quixotic figures as the three biblical wisemen as Berriatúa, José Maria, and
Cavan approach the site guided by the star. This sequence seamlessly incorporates both
monuments from different times, styles, and ideologies and in doing so sketches the temporal
overlays between the democratic period and the dictatorship it had attempted to seal over. Here
the statue is not simply a remainder of Francoism, but a node of connectivity in a larger formation
that presents the past and present as coexistent or simultaneous.
El día de la bestia doe no j cha dicaoial de ono Madid blic ace. I alo
reveals how the persistent ideologies and affects of Francoism pervade private space. While in
Madrid, Father Berriatúa stays in a traditional pension recommended by José Maria. The pension
is the space of ultra-traditional Franco Spain, where the meals are predictable, crosses hang over
the beds, and the décor has not been updated in decades. Moreiras Menor analyzes the pension in
detail, arguing that it is a space in which the past and present cohabitate dysfunctionally.435 The
enion i managed ih an ion fi b he Jo Maia mohe, hoe chaace embodie he
values and violence of the regime. She openly expresses her displeasure regarding the post-
dicaohi anfomaion of he neighbohood: No hay más que ver cómo se pone esta calle por
la noche. ¡Todos son putas, negros, drogadictos, asesinos, que asco! (J look a ho hi ee
gets at night! I all hoe, black, dg addic, mdee, i diging!). He moaliing
tirade flattens a wide range of urban complexities from immigration to drug use to issues of
security. On her nightstand sits a symbol of the ultimate manifestation of security during

435 Moreiras Menor, Cultura herida, 270.

179
Francoism: a picture of her late husband dressed in the uniform of the Civil Guard, the militarized
police force that gained notoriety for their tactics of violent repression under the dictatorship.
Tained nde he egime logic of eci ty and control, this police force continued to exert power
ino he democac. Indeed, he 1981 co da mentioned in the previous chapter was led by a
Lieenan Colonel of he Ciil Gad. In he film, Jo Maia mohe embodie hi eemingl
retrograde violence. She comments that she wants break the legs of those undesired newcomers in
her neighborhood and takes matters into her own hands with a shotgun when she suspects that her
guest, Berriatúa, is not who he appears to be.
Through the space of the pension, the film clearly treats the legacy of Francoism, and shows
how this violence has been rearticulated in the context of the democracy. As Moreiras Menor
observes:
Violencia urbana, violencia de Estado y violencia espectacular se enlazan en la
película conformando el espacio de fondo por donde transcurre la trama,
constituyendo entre toda ella una escena crítica donde se ponen de manifiesto las
tensiones sociales y simbólicas sobre las que se asienta la realidad de los años
noventa.

(Urban violence, State violence, and the violence of spectacle are tied together in
the film to form the background over which the plot unfolds, constituting a critical
scene which makes manifest the social and symbolic tensions upon which the
reality of the nineties sits.) 436

Remnan of facim acial and ocial ae iolence ae eaiclaed in he conflic of
democracy. These different forms of violence weave themselves together in the spaces of the film,
illaing ha Jo Maia mohe i no an emainde o an anachonim. Th at is, these violent
fascist formations exist not as remnants or ghostly traces of the fascist past, but in the words of
Sole, a dee ee oin of geneaie oibiliie o iolen and iolaing abence. 437

436 Moreiras Menor, 263.
437 Stoler, Duress, 5.

180
These old and new forms of real and figurative violence coexist and meld together to produce new
forms. The past is not past, but remains intertwined with the present to produce material effects.
The film also charts how the cruel realities and violent force of these fascist formations
reemerge in the context of neoliberal Spain. Berriatúa arrives to Madrid to repeatedly encounter
instances of violence perpetrated by the Limpia Madrid group, whose graffiti pervades the spaces
of he film. Indeed, he film eimoe he go iolence oe he ean oe chaed b he
priest. Berriatúa watches as the group savagely beats a homeless man before burning him alive.
Later, Cavan enters a convenience store to find that the immigrant owners have been murdered by
the same group in a xenophobic attack. Finally, their paths cross with Limpia Madrid again in the
climax of the film when the group murders a homeless Roma family before badly beating Berriatúa
and Cavan and killing José Maria. However, Berriatúa and those around him are also complicit
within this violent formation. No one intervenes in these displays of force. Onlookers watch in a
disinterested way, inured to the violence. The ethical and social consequences of these occurrences
ae ignoed, o oe, eloied. Indeed, Caan eleied lea fo hel o find Beiaa and o
stop the apocalypse only serves to heighten drama and boost ratings for the network. Violence, it
would seem, is an inherent component of postmodern spectacle.
Postmodernism is often seen as an end of history because the expansion of mass media and
the stress on representation converts the real into simulacra.438 Ye Labani ha ggeed ha he
current postmodern obsession with simulacra may be seen as a return of the past in spectral
fom. 439 That is to say, far from resulting in the end of historical ideologies or forms of violence,
the expansion of systems of representation only provides for an extension and intensification of

438 Labani, Po Modenim and he Poblem of Clal Ideni, 399.
439 Labani, Hio and Hanolog; o, Wha Doe One Do ih he Gho of he Pa?, 63.

181
these earlier forms. El día de la bestia shows how poetics are central to reading, identifying, and
ndeanding de in hi omoden maeial landcae. A Sole age, acconing fo
what duress looks like needs the poetic of hogh o make i cae. 440 That is to say, the poetics
of thought can help to form close and insightful readings with attention to form and formation, that
identify the hidden and apparent ways in which Francoism remains and reinscribes itself in
material and affective structures. In this case, I argue, that the poetics of cinema allow access to a
psychogeographic territory. The maps it reveals are formed through encounters and misencounters;
at best they may entail misreading and at worst they fall into the traps of full-blown paranoia. But
a McKenie Wak age, bee o il a indmill han o an he lance. 441

Postmodern Endings
While the film clearly parodies the idea of the Christian fundamentalist apocalypse, many have
argued that our current global capitalist system is approaching an apocalyptic point, a zero-point
in which capitalism can no longer sustain itself. Zizek identifies the ecological crisis, biogenetic
revolution, imbalances in the economic system, and the widening of social divisions and
eclion a he fo ide of hi aocale and an ha he ae oliical elie ee
capital, they are unable and/or unwilling to control and regulate capital even when the very survival
of he hman ace i limael a ake. 442 This idea certainly seems to drive the film. The Torres
KIO, symbolic of the global political and economic elite, represent precisely this loss of control.
Yet for Kermode, the purported end is always disconfirmed, yet not entirely discredited.443 When

440 Stoler, Duress, 36.
441 Wark, The Beach beneath the Street, 154.
442 Zizek, Living in the End Times, 334.
443 Kermode, The Sense of an Ending, 11.

182
an apocalyptic prediction is not fulfilled, a new date must simply be forecasted. The final moment
is postponed as mistaken predictions are attributed to errors of calculation or a misreading of
allegories. Likewise, the apocalyptic ending of the film is ambiguous. It is unclear whether
Berriatúa and his sidekicks discovered the antichrist or whether this was all a hallucination. There
is uncertainty as to whether they have saved the world, and as to whether it was ever at risk at all.
In he film final cene life goes on as normal as Berriatúa and Cavan sit on a park bench,
confirming that apocalyptic endings are perpetually postponed.
Because of its apocalyptic premise, many critics read El día de la bestia as a horror film
condemning the violent realitie of 1990 Sain. Moeia Meno age ha he film ok con
el lado más terrorífico de la posmodernidad impulsados por la conciencia de que vivimos, quizás,
el final de la oa ( with the most terrifying side of postmodernity, driven by the realization
that we are living, perhaps, the last of the utopias).444 Kinder reads the film as an attack on the
libeaian eho of ociali Sain, b add ha he film i alo an aem o eceae
coneaie adiion. 445 While de la Igleia fi lm is clearly critical of the political and social
cene of 1995, i doe no omoe a en. Inead, he film i concened ih he a eole
ma be manilaed ino belieing anhing if i i eened in a conincing a. 446 Certainly,
Beiaa bumbling misreadings would caution the viewer, encouraging them not to take things
fo eacl ha he eem. The deil loe o fool a Caan noe; he deil ala imiae
Chi in ode o make a mocke of him.
However, just as Don Quixote is not a chivalric novel, this is not a horror film, but a film
that parodies horror. The film borrows heavily from the horror genre, but only to parody these

444 Moreiras Menor, Cultura herida, 273; my emphasis
445 Kinde, Refiging Sociali Sain: An Inodcion, 23.
446 Buse, Triana-Toribio, and Willis, The Cinema of Álex de La Iglesia, 61.

183
conventions in a very Cervantine way. De la Iglesia parodies the symbols of the Fundamentalist
apocalypse (the devil horns, the dark magic, the pentagrams) as a comic device. A keen spectator
ill immediael ecognie Beiaa eschatological symbols as the harmless signs of death
metal culture, just as they will quickly apprehend the spuriousness of the television clairvoyant,
from whom Berriatúa seeks advice in the dark arts. Besides, there are no terrifying or suspenseful
moments in the film. Any fear that the narrative or the images might produce is evacuated by
humor, especially with the blundering character of José Maria, who never lets the film get too
serious. For example, in what would be the climax of terror, the scene of the birth of the Antichrist
and the appearance of Satan himself in the form of a monstrous goat-beast, José Maria makes faces
and laughs at the camera even as Satan throws him to his death from the top of the towers. While
certainly the film is critical of 1990s capitalist Madrid, the premise of the apocalypse is a parody
of horror clichés. This is because results of capitalism aen eifing a all; he deil ha
laughing to our deaths.
But further than the parody, the film questions the notion of ending. Deie Ziek
aning egading he diao coneence of global neolibealim, he film ecall Jameon
famo dicm ha i i eaie o imagine he end of he old han he end of caialim. 447
Understood in this way, the apocalypse is not an event, but the new normal. Actions or occurrences
that were previously deemed as morally abject, such as the neo-fascist violence in the film, are
normalized and treated simply as fact, another part of our day-to-day lives. As Benjamin has
eminded , The conce of oge m be gonded in he idea of caaohe. Tha hing
ae a o i he caaohe . It is not an ever-present possibility but what in each case is

447 Mark Fisher attibutes the quote to both Jameson and Zizek. Fisher, Capitalist Realism.

184
gien. Th [] hell i no omehing ha aai , b hi life hee and no. 448 Benjamin
draws attention to the violence inherent in the capitalist notion of progress, which considers history
as a teleological scheme that superimposes itself over old forms. But the old forms remain. In the
sedimented geographies of duress that the film sketches out, the fascism and religious fanaticism
of the Franco years are really not all that different than the neo-fascism of Limpia Madrid and the
new-age clim of Caan eleiion ho, La Zona Oscura. De la Igleia film illae ho,
in 1995he ea ha he eea ih Fanco image on i a officiall eied fom ciclaion
and twenty yea afe he dicao deah the regime continued to exert an influence on Spanish
society. A I elaboae in folloing chae, he film een i a coninaion of he emoali
of the state of exception that the regime instantiated, an indicator of the temporality of dictatorial
duress. This state of exception is extended indefinitely and expanded in the 2000s. Indeed, crisis
will become a defining characteristic of Spanish culture after 2008, at which point it will be
embraced in the political and social realms as a structuring discursive concept.

448 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 473.

185
Chapter 5
Mapping the Crisis:
Historical Materialism and Creative Documentary

Toda cii ha become an inmen of le. I ee o legiimie oliical and economic
deciion ha in fac dioe ciien and deie hem of an oibili of deciion.

Giogio Agamben, The Endle Cii

Introduction
Since the global financial crisis of 2008, a state of crisis has come to define the present moment in
Spain.449 Without a doubt, the financial crisis affected the country in a profound and material way:
it halted construction and public works projects, reducing these to the empty shells of half-finished
buildings and deteriorating façades; it led to a steep rise in unemployment and labor migration into
other European Union states, resulting in demographic change; it dispossessed vulnerable citizens
through the implementation of austerity measures including cuts to welfare and public services.
And although the country has since recovered from the most severe effects of the economic
downturn, the crisis left an indelible mark on contemporary Spanish culture. For nearly a decade

449 At the time of writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has restructured daily life in Spain and,
indeed, the entire world. According to the Pew Research Cene, a lea 91% of he old
population currently faces some form of restriction on movement. While the social, economic,
and political repercussions of the pandemic remain to be seen, COVID-19 has drawn the class
divisions that deepened after the 2008 economic crisis into sharp relief. Those most at risk for
becoming infected are those deemed essential workers. This includes medical professionals, but
also the hundreds of thousands of underpaid and precarious laborers working in the supply chain
from supermarkets to warehouses or as caregivers and sanitation workers. Spain has been hit
especially hard by the pandemic. As of June 2020, the country nears 250,000 confirmed cases
with over 28,000 deaths. The high mortality rate has been attributed in part the weakening of
public health infrastructure effected by the austerity measures of the 2008 financial crisis,
leaving the country with insufficient resources to care for patients during the pandemic. It is clear
that the pandemic will impact the present generation on a global scale. However, the outcomes of
hi cen cii deend on hehe i fncion a inmen of le, in Agamben em, o
whether it is seized upon as an opportunity for social and political alternatives, as I suggest in
this chapter.

186
afe he 2008 global economic meldon, cii loomed lage in neae headline s; it
peppered the speeches of both the new and the old political parties; 450 it framed ordinary
conversations; and it was a prevalent theme in film and television shows. As Jonathan Snyder
notes, the crisis came to reshape and reorganize daily life in Spain.451 Indeed, he em cii
dominated social discourse as a euphemism for the intensely distressing and sometimes deadly
experience of pervasive precarity that is, the gradual physical attenuation of a populace that
Laen Belan call lo deah. 452 This is by no means an exaggeration. As Bryan Cameron has
hon, Sain neolibeal olicie hae odced a ain of clal aholog , he
consequences of which include poverty, hunger, mental illness, and even death, as suicide rates
increased.453
The film analed in hi chae, Qenin Raelli Bricks (2017) along with Víctor
Moeno Edificio España (The Building, 2012) and La ciudad oculta (The Hidden City, 2018),
must be understood within this 21st century moment of crisis. Indeed, they could be included in
he gene ha Dean Allbion em cii cinema, o, film ha engage ih o confon ha
i mean o lie in cii. 454 Allbion kee he definiion of cii oen a a geneic make
that by necessity will find itself inflected by the shape of whatever current crisis or Crisis that
Sain face. 455 Indeed, while the particular circumstances have changed, the appellation of crisis
has not. In popular use, the term expands beyond the 2008 financial crisis to encompass a broad
range of local and global conflicts and issues, such as the refugee crisis or housing crisis, various

450 See for example the book written by the founder of the left-wing Podemos party, Pablo
Iglesias titled Politics in a Time of Crisis.
451 Snde, Abo Time, 222.
452 Belan, Slo Deah (Soeeign, Obei, Laeal Agenc), 754.
453 Cameon, Sain in Cii, 4.
454 Allbion, Pime Rik, 3.
455 Allbritton, 3.

187
corruption crises, crises of the state and governance, including the so-called Crisis
Constitucional in Caalonia, and, mo ecenl, he cen COVID -19 crisis, the effects of which
have yet to fully take shape. To be clear, these phenomena are not divorced from the financial
crisis but are conditioned the same governing logics of necessary austerity.
However, the association of crisis in Spain with the years following 2008 overlooks the
ways in which the democracy had already operated under a regime of crisis. As I argued in
Chapters Three and Four, the democratic period was plagued by political, social, and economic
cie. Thee cie, hehe eal o eceied, ee fndamenal fo omoing Sain
democratic consensus in the transition period. Indeed, the so-called Pact of Oblivion of 1977 was
justified through the logic of permanent crisis: it was purportedly a necessary, if unjust, measure
to avoid provoking another civil war. The post-2008 crisis in Spain must therefore be considered
as an inheritance or a continuation of the temporality of crisis that the dictatorship was founded
upon, that is, the state of exception that the regime instantiated in 1936 when it staged its military
coup. The current crisis is thus an indication of the way that the temporality of dictatorial duress
extends indefinitely into the present.
The aellaion of cii alo eend beond Sain a a cing dicie conce
in conemoa oliic. Fo Agamben, cii i a moo of moden oliic, and fo a long ime
i ha been a of nomali in an egmen of ocial life. 456 Indeed, contemporary political and
social conflicts are overwhelmingly characterized as crises, as emergencies or calamities.
Agamben eflecion on cii bild fom hi ealie iing on he ae of eceion a a
paradigm of modern governance. Of course, while a particular paradigm of security indeed exists
as hallmark of most moden ae, i a alo fondaional o he e inallmen of imeial

456 Agamben, The Endle Cii a an Inmen of Poe.

188
ahoi and acial fomaion of coloniali, a Sole ha hon . 457 In both cases, the
designation of a state of exception allows for the extension of power and authority into the civil
sphere and the suspension of civil or human rights. Understood as something extraordinary an
exception, which should last a limited amount of time , a state of exception liquidates democracy
through rule by decree. 458 While states of exception are linked to dictatorship, they are not
reducible to such authoritarian forms of governance. In a dictatorship an authority is vested with
full powers, whereas a state of exception represents a suspension of the law, a space devoid of law.
In this sense, the crisis is a discursive concept, but not a political one. That is, a crisis does not
designate a particular distribution of power. Crises may, however, serve as a justification for those
distributions and redistributions of power both in dictatorships and in states of exception.
Undeood in Agamben em, he aellaion of cii ma inie a ae of eceion ha
eode indiidal feedom, ocial bond, and limael, i incomaible ih d emocac. 459
Agamben draws attention to the fact that while in the ancient Greek crisis signified both
judgment and decision, a critique and a decisive moment, the contemporary iteration of the term
no longer carries the relation to time implied by its semanic oo. Inead, he een
ndeanding of cii efe o an ending ae ha i dioced fom he idea of eolion
and eeaedl ooned. 460 In this view, the discursive formation of crisis establishes a
temporality of permanent present. This state of enduring or perpetual crisis is implied in Isabel
Coie al iled 2012 cii film, Ayer no termina nunca, or Yesterday Never Ends. In the film,
a couple loses their child as a result of medical negligence stemming from the cuts to healthcare

457 Stoler, Duress, 22.
458 Agamben, State of Exception, 1 31.
459 Agamben, The Endle Cii a an Inmen of Poe.
460 Agamben.

189
imposed by the highly unpopular EU austerity measures in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.
Coie dama feae hee imoed aei meae a a cenal lo deice and eeal ho,
in he film nea fe, he Sanih financial c isis continues to condition the lives of citizens.
The film ndecoe he a in hich he conce of cii ha become an inmen of le
[that] serves to legitimize political and economic decisions that in fact dispossess citizens and
deprive them of an oibili of deciion. 461 In the words of Maria Boletsi, crises become a
legiimiing mechanim fo a docine of no alenaie. 462 Indeed, during the financial crisis
boh of Sain majoi aie, he PSOE and he PP, oed fo he imlemenaion of eee
austerity measures as if there were no alternative. For example, the 2011 constitutional reform of
article 135 prioritized payments on national debt over all other expenses, permanently weakening
Sain elfae ae. Indeed, man of he olicie o acice adoed ding he cii had
permanent effects, ensuring that its logic remained long after the particular emergency had passed.
In hi ene, Sain cii imlemened boh a oliical and emoal egime.
Crisis cinema, I argue, engages with not just life in crisis, but with life under the regime of
crisis. Cii naaie, hoee, don j elae he effects of the crisis. They also stage a
resistance to its regime. Many crisis narratives, both fictional and real, focus on the social histories
of precarious subjects naaie ha fom emahic bidge o bild a haed ecai ih
the potential to unite citizens.463 The maheic chaace of Coie film een an eamle
of such a social history, which narrates the systemic effects of the crisis on an individual, human
scale. Similarly, Labrador Méndez has analyzed the contemporary intensification and circulation
of ha he call historias de vida, o oie ha elae he eeienced condiion of he cii

461 Agamben.
462 Bolei, Toad a Vial Middle Voice, 20.
463 Labrador Mnde, La ida bime, 563.

190
through subjective histories. These stories often circulate through informal media channels: social
media and the alternative press. And increasingly, he argues, these stories are read through a
oliical len; a a fom of oliical echnolog he nie he aicla and he collecie and
can serve as catalysts for political action. 464 For Allbritton, too, narratives of individual
lneabili hold he oenial o [emake] oliic and elocae he ffeing indiidal ino he
engh of he commni. 465 Certainly this sort of collectivization of suffering has produced
forms of social action, evident for example in the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca
(Platform for those Affected by Mortgages), a group in which citizens band together to support
neighbors facing eviction.
Yet, the films I analyze in this chapter turn away from the subjective histories studied by
Allbritton and Labrador Méndez. The filmmakers, Ravelli and Moreno, construct their histories
through material objects, turning to the rubbish and ruins of real estate speculation in and around
Madrid. These films form part of a larger trend of observational documentary (including the work
of Mecede lae and Jo L Gen) ha conc a maeiali hio of Sain
construction boom and crisis. Such films share a materialist bent, I argue, in that they turn their
attention to matter. Materialism invole, in he od of Hco Hoo, a fndamenal
oienaion oad bodie inead of ol, angible affai inead of eclaie noion. 466 In
his film, Ravelli investigates bricks as a metonym for the economic crisis, documenting a material
micro-history. Meanwhile, Moeno aoach i moe of a maeiali dérive. His 2012
documentary, Edificio España, documents the slow and incomplete destruction of the Edificio
Eaa, a aadigmaic bilding fom he dicaohi apertura period. The filmmaker wanders

464 Labrador Méndez, 563.
465 Allbion, Pime Rik, 2.
466 Hoyos, Things with a History, 11.

191
the building with a handheld camera and, through a series of travelling shots, the Edificio España
is made to tell its own ghost story the story of its own ruin as the material furnishings of the
ce ineio ae limael gond o d in a landfill. Finall, Moeno mo ecen
feature-length film, La ciudad oculta (2018), returns to Madrid for a sustained reflection on space
and lace. Thi ime, hoee, he filmmake n o he ci ndegond inface fo a
contemplation on the relationship between the city and its inhabitants, both human and nonhuman.
Again, the story is told through space and movement as opposed to characters and conventional
narrative devices. By turning their focus to material spaces and to the objects and fragments
therein the films piece together a history of things, not beings. I ask then, if crisis narratives of
individual vulnerability can lead to collective action, what can narratives of things do?
The concept of crisis reveals not just a problem with political organization, but with the
organization of history and temporality. As discussed above, the appellation of crisis establishes a
perpetual present, built on the impossibility of a future and a turn away from the past. Yet in
articulating a history of things on a on non-human timeline, these films present a different
relationship to the present. In decentering human histories, narratives of things allow for a new
understanding of social relations and historical scales. Importantly, these films provide a way of
thinking from the ruins of crisis, not in an attempt to piece together a history of what went wrong,
but to contemplate the fragments remain. Things, or non-human material objects, have a role to
play in duress. They undergird the variable structures of dictatorial duress and produce the
contours, vortexes, and currents that influence the trajectories of history. To this end, this chapter
posits these observational films as constructing materialist history, as a practice which, in
Benjamin em, bh[e] hio again he gain. 467 Aligning with the ancient Greek

467 Aend, Wale Benjamin: 1892 -1940, 257.

192
meaning of he od cii, a a momen of eflecion o jdgemen, maeiali hio demand
pause, turning a critical view to both the past and the present. Benjamin describes the practice of
hioical maeialim in em of foming a conellaion, a o of inaemoal oeic ha
eie on deail a ooed o gand naaie. Benjamin eflecion hold ofond inigh,
as such constellations make up the dense and fragmented landscapes of duress. To study the
contours of duress is to better understand the complex workings of power in the present and the
future.

Bricks: History and Material Circulation
For French filmmaker and sociologist Quentin Ravelli, the recent past can be accessed through an
ecaaion of he maeial old. Raelli docmena, Bricks, begins in La Sagra, a region just
south of Madrid and home to dozens of factories that collectively manufacture the majority of the
con bick. The film oen in one of La Saga indial one ih an o -of-focus shot
overlooking a highway. The camera trembles and the sound of approaching heavy machinery is
heard. A large tractor slowly fills the frame and its shovel violently drops a load of bricks into a
rubbish pile, creating a cloud of dust [Fig. 6.1]. These bricks are no longer of use to the machinery
of the real estate economy as the halt in construction led to a sharp drop in the demand for raw
materials. As we learn later in the film, many of the brick factories of the region have closed due
to the economic crisis and the workers have been laid off. Despite their apparent durability, bricks
ae eealed o be, in he od of Hoo, hing ha do no la. 468 These seemingly immutable
hing ae in fac moe anien han he aea and hei elaie imemanence ma bea

468 Hoyos, Things with a History, 10.

193
ine o change in labo elaion o geooliic. 469 Here, the discarded bricks gesture to the
cii lage cheme of dioeion in hich lielihood and lives are increasingly discarded
as superfluous.

Fig. 6.1: A tractor dumps a load of bricks, which fill the frame as they fall and shatter.

The opening credits begin to roll as the camera enters one of the still-functioning brick
factories and follows the bricks down the production line as they are shaped and cut. The machines
work in a precise fashion to create smooth and uniform bricks, their repetitive sounds creating a
soothing rhythm. A worker is present in this opening sequence, but, significantly, he only appears
as a reflection of himself; with his body outside the frame, he is only visible as reflected back to
the camera through a quality control mirror, a visual metaphor for alienation. The documentary
seeks to reveal the labor relations that produce the bricks, and later scenes show men working to
extract, shape, and cut clay. The film also reveals the processes involved in selling the bricks as a
salesman visits architecture firms to show his products. Yet the camera uses the bricks not these
workers to arrive at the heart of the story. For this is not just a documentary about bricks as
material artifacts, but about the relationships and processes that bricks structure. In essence, the

469 Hoyos, 10.

194
film interrogates the causes and effects of the spectacular fall of the construction sector through its
primary raw material: ladrillo, or brick.470 It makes sense, for as the most common construction
material in Spain, bricks are inextricably linked to the construction and real estate industries.
The film studies what bricks do, conideing bick a hing -that-do-things. 471 Ravelli
ake bick no aie o ine objec, b a iban mae, o e hiloohe Jane Benne
term. That is, bricks are agents that produce effects and create meaning. Similar to the function of
bricks in the economic structures that provoked the financial crisis, Benne e, Vibrant Matter,
calls attention to the active participation of nonhuman forces in events.472 Bennett identifies a vital
maeiali in nonhman bodie, a Thing-Power ih he abili o animae, o ac, o roduce
effec damaic and ble. 473 To consider bricks as vibrant matter in this way is to explore the
entanglements of the human and material worlds in order to ge beond hinking abo o
relationship to things in terms of a subject/object divide, which puts agency on one side of the
diide (o ide) and oe ha hing ei olel a objec o be maeed. 474
To posit bricks as vibrant matter in this context is not so strange, considering the
capaciousness of the term ladrillo. In Spain, ladrillo is commonly used as a metonym for the real
estate and construction sectors more broadly, observable in myriad newspaper headlines about the
real estate market.475 A Raelli himelf oin o, Il est devenu une sorte de monstre linguistique

470 Although Bricks was filmed in Spain by a French filmmaker, the film uses the English title
across the Spanish, French, and English versions.
471 Labani, Doing Thing, 224.
472 See alo Diana Coole conibion o Coole and Fo, New Materialisms, Duke UP, 2010.
473 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 6, emphasis in original.
474 Labani, Doing Thing, 223.
475 See for example Sus señorías confiaron en el ladrillo (The Membe of Paliamen Wee
Confident in Brick) in El Mundo in 2011; La deuda del ladrillo castigará a la banca, según las
Cámaras de Comercio (The Deb of Bick Will Afflic he Bank, Accoding o he Chambe of
Commerce) in El País in 2010, El Banco de España revela que hay 62.000 millones más de

195
dignan la doe dn ooi conomie e ocial oe lEagne dajodhi (i ha
become a sort of linguistic monster designating the failure of an economic and social power
particular to Spain today).476 The term holds a multitude of meanings within the film as well. For
example, the eviction notices for defaulting on a mortgage come in a large packet of paperwork
that the members of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca efe o a bick fo hei ie
and heft. In another sense, an architect describes those who have made a significant profit in real
eae a hoe ho hae ck a bick blo (ega n ladillao). The bick hemele h
offer a fertile terrain for meaning and their circulation allows for a larger reflection of the complex
geogah of he financial cii. A Raelli aed in an ineie: Me pareció que entre todo el
boom de la crítica del ladrillo faltaba un documental que intentara hacer un retrato general de la
crisis a partir del propio ladrillo, es decir de trasladar el foco para hablar de esas regiones rurales
un poco siniestradas en las que el PP resiste pese a los asaltos de Podemos, e intentar comprender
lo que pasa allí (I eemed o me ha he ae of ciicim on bick a miing a docmena
that would try to give a general portrait of the crisis departing from bricks themselves, which is to
say, transferring the focus to talk about these devastated rural regions in which the PP resists in
spite of the efforts of Podemos, and to try to understand what is happening there).477 Bricks, for
Ravelli, become a mode of inquiry and understanding.
Bricks travels to a variety of locations. From the industrial region of La Sagra, the camera
transports the viewer across the rolling hills of the Spanish meseta (plateau) to Valdeluz, a
dormitory city proposed and developed during the real estate boom on land that had been allocated

posibles impagos con el ladrillo (The Bank of Sain Reea ls That There Are 62 Billion More
Potential Defaults with Brick) in El País in 2010, among many others.
476 Raelli, Le charme du ladillo.
477 d. in Poch, Ladillo (Bick).

196
by the then-President of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre. However, in a turn of
events reminiscent of the resource-poor peripheral developments of the 1960s and 70s analyzed in
Chapter Two, the homes in Valdeluz were built before the necessary infrastructure and social
services such as schools and transportation. Valdeluz rows of brick apartment blocks look as
uniform as the bricks themselves, as if the buildings too have been manufactured on a production
line. However, as the development lacked transportation infrastructure and public services, namely
the promised train station on the line to Madrid, the apartment units did not sell as anticipated and
the city became a ghost town. The desolation of Valdeluz is apparent in the montage in which the
camera explores the city through alternating tracking and still shots. There is no human activity on
the empty city streets. The paths are overgrown, populated by cicadas and rabbits instead of people.
Other shots reveal the state of the unfinished construction projects: stalled cranes, empty scaffolds,
incomplete structures vandalized with graffiti.
But Valdeluz is just one of the many failed developments that pepper the Spanish
countryside. The country holds many highly conspicuous failed developments, from the infamous
Don Qioe Aio of Cidad Real o he ambiio bioclimaic ci of La Encina nea
Segovia. These and other stalled construction projects appear as prominent material reflections of
the economic crisis in the work of ai and hoogahe ch a Makel Redondo Sand
Cale (2012, 2018) o Han Haeke Caillo en el aie (2012). Thee abandoned ce
usually built with brick leave a lasting material record on the Spanish landscape. As Ravelli has
aged, La déroute du ladrillo, en Eagne, ce la doe dn me indiel e financie
fondé sur la spéculation immobilière et appuyé sur la surproduction de la brique rouge (he faile
of ladrillo in Spain is the failure of an industrial and financial system founded on real estate

197
speculation supported by the superproduction of red brick).478 Here bricks are implicated not as
passive material artifacts exchanged in the construction market, but as a highly-visible agent or
actor that supports that market.
The emine of Sain gho on gee oad he le iible effec of he
economic crisis: the people who have lost their jobs and homes. And Ravelli uses the material the bricks to also trace the social causes and consequences of the market crash. Bricks structure
the narrative and become the vehicle for making meaningful connections and critiques; images of
bricks open and close the film and provide the transitions between sequences. These transitions
are not just visual but aural; the rhythmic sounds of the brick factory become extradiegetic and are
woven into the soundtrack. Composed by Thierry Mazurel and Yann Pittard, the soundtrack mixes
haunting guitar and keyboard melodies with the clicks, hums, whirs, and hisses of machines in the
brick factory.
Through such transitions, the film travels to the center of Madrid to feature the protests and
meetings of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca. These scenes highlight dispossession of
everyday citizens who have become victims in speculative real estate schemes such as the
construction of Valdeluz. The film prominently features Blanca, an Ecuadorian immigrant who,
despite working as a housekeeper, is unable to continue her mortgage payments and receives an
eviction notice. Through the collective action of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca,
Blanca is able to negotiate with the mortgage lender and her debt is forgiven, although she must
give up the flat. Bricks ends as Blanca and her children are finally debt-free, but homeless. Yet the
eadiegeic ond of bick making ha ndegid he film emoional n emind ha he
machinations of ladrillo are behind the struggles of Blanca and others in the film. For during the

478 Raelli, Le charme du ladrillo..

198
ime eiod of Blanca eicion, he bick faco e ceives its highest volume of orders since the
2008 crisis and bricks begin roll off the production line once again. The market shows signs of
recovery, even if those individuals hardest hit by the economic downturn do not.
Bricks highlights the way in which the economic market is structured over more than just
human relations, but as an aemblage (a em ha Benne boo fom Gile Delee and
Felix Guattari) of vibrant matter, both human and nonhuman. This understanding blurs distinctions
between subjects and objects, historical materialism and new materialism. As Bennett writes, i
is important to follow the trail of human power to expose social hegemonies (as historical
materialists do.) But my contention is that there is also public value in following the scent of a
non-human, thingly power, the material agency of natural bodies and technological artifacts. 479
In lending protagonism to the bricks, the film reveals the way in which things are invested with a
power that structures the social and political relations at the heart of the economic crisis. The
material world does not only carry the imprint or trace of historical or social processes; it also
actively shapes the worlds we inhabit.

Edificio España: A Dérive of the Crisis
Moreno also turn o he maeial in making Madid monmenal Edificio Eaa he cenal
oagoni of hi film, alhogh hee i onl one eablihing ho of he bilding maie
exterior. While he bilding ie and heigh old eem o lend i o he eeme lo angle ho
and panoptic cartographies analyzed in earlier chapters, Moreno resists this tendency. In limiting
ch ide eablihing ie of he bilding eeio, the filmmaker eschews the totalizing
cartographic tendencies which embody the human impulse to control natural space. While these

479 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, xiii.

199
regimes of visuality are necessarily linked to non-human ways of seeing (binoculars, telescopes,
or other optical devices), they ultimately serve a framework that inserts the human into a position
of control and domination. Instead, Moreno privileges the perspective of the pedestrian, and the
camera performs an intimate psychogeography of the Edificio España. The filmmaker explores the
building labinhine ineio, a if o ma he memoie of he oom and halla. Alhogh
he bilding eeen a ignifican comonen of he Fanco egime naion bilding ojec, he
film is not interested in reconstructing this monumental past and turns instead to ruins and
fagmen, mch in he manne of he maeiali hioian famol deiced in Benjamin fige
of he ag icke. In he od of Benjamin, he i a man []hoe job i i o gahe he da efe
in the capital. Everything that the big city has thrown away, everything it has lost, everything it
ha coned, eehing i ha ched ndefoo he caaloge and collec. 480 The film
contemplates and catalogues discarded material objects instead of using them to reconstruct their
referents. However, as the structuring element of the narrative, the Edificio España is as much an
object to be contemplated or read, it is also the subject ha die he film. The bilding maeial
processes of demolition carry the pace of the film, while its labyrinthine structure decenters the
narrative as much as it provides the foundation for it. In this way, the film fuses historical
materialism with new materialism, suggesting that the material world can tell us as much about
the past as it does our present.
Built between 1947 and 1953, the immense 25-story Edificio España presides over
Madid iconic Plaa de Eaa. The laa i cenall locaed a he emin of Gan Via, o he
Avenida José Antonio as the street had been renamed during the dictatorship. To the south of the
Plaza lies Hapsburg Madrid, which features many examples of the iconic red and white façades

480 Benjamin, Walter Benjamin, 48.

200
ha chaaceie mch of he achiece of Madid 17 th century, exemplified by the iconic Plaza
Mayor. Like the Valley of he Fallen, he Edificio Eaa deign i inied b hi imeial age.
Yet the Edificio España forges an aesthetic intersection between the imperial golden age and the
modern aspirations of the dictatorship. While the red and white exterior along with the Herrerian-
like ie and he clal deailing in he faade eoke Sain ical 17 th century architecture,
the building itself is decidedly modern. Designed and built by the brothers Joaquín and Julián
Otamendi, the Edificio España was the tallest building in Europe for a time, in keeping with the
egime monmenali aeheic of eaggeaed eicali diced in he Chae One. The
bilding imoing olme a mean o eflec no j he oliical oe of he dicaohi,
but its economic prosperity as it left behind the so-called años de hambre. The building is perhaps
the most representative construction of the post-war autarkic period; it was officially financed
within the urban policies of the Plan Bidagor.481 Yet it also diverged from the neo-Herrerian
austerity of emblematic post-war architecture to present a vision of modern opulence, anticipating
Sain o -called economic miracle and the shift to consumer capitalism. As Juliá observes in his
history of Madrid, the Edificio España served as proof that the Madrid of the future would not be
constructed by an idea, not even a fascist one. Instead, private developers and large real estate
companies would mold the city to their own vision.482
Taking iniaion fom Ne Yok Ci Ro ckefeller Center and its materialization of the
concept of a vertical city within a city, the Edificio España was inaugurated as a luxurious mixed-
use complex that featured the magnificent Hotel Plaza, along with a shopping mall, and office and

481 Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, Guía de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de Madrid,
Tomo I, 217.
482 Juliá Díaz, Ringrose, and Segura Graíño, Madrid, 438.

201
apartment space.483 As the Spanish newspaper ABC reported on the opening of the hotel in 1953,
la categoría de gran capital europea de nuestra ciudad adquiere nuevos signos de superación con
la aea del noo Hoel Plaa del obebio edificio Eaa, ogllo del nuevo gran
Madrid (o ci caego a a gand Eoean caial acie ne ign of imoemen ih
the opening of the sumptuous Hotel Plaza in the sober Edificio España, pride of the new great
Madrid).484 The building exemplified the dictatorshi ideological oiion in he 1950, hich
had evolved over time since the end of the civil war. The late 1950s represented a turning point in
Sain economic olic a i began o ela i aakic meae and embace he apertura
policies that would open Spain to foreign investment and align the country with the tenets of global
caialim. A he gain of Sain o -called economic miracle were largely achieved through
massive growth in the housing and construction sectors, the Edificio España served as the lavish
anihei o he lo income hoing conced ding he ame eiod a he ci oki. The
bilding, a one of he eci gad in Moeno film obee, i ofen ieed a an aolog ia
for capitalism.
But marking this space as a legacy or remainder of Francoism fails to account for, in the
od of Sole, ho eole choe and are forced to reckon with features of those formations
in hich he emain iidl bond. 485 The building and the plaza it presides over formed the
center of commerce in the decades following its inauguration. Moreover, although the building
began o ho i age, i emained an iconic fie of Madid cle hogh he aniion ea
as artists and filmmakers took up residence in the building. The Edificio España even played a

483 Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, Guía de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de Madrid,
Tomo I, 217.
484 ABC, 4 Oct 1953, pg. 24
485 Stoler, Duress, 346.

202
cenal ole in In Zlea 1975 eeimenal ho, Aquarium.486 Yet as much as the building
a a mbol of he Fancoi oei ha a boleed b Sain iniial foa ono he global
market, it would soon become a symbol of the failure of that economic system a reflection of the
cycles of growth and obsolesce upon which capitalism is predicated. And indeed, by the 1990s the
bilding olence had faded a he Plaa de Eaa lo ominence o ohe commecial one
such as La Castellana.487 Then in 2005 and at the height of the real estate market, one of Spain
largest financial institutions, Banco Santander, bought the building with plans to reform it into a
new luxury hotel. After closing the Hotel Plaza and vacating the apartments, Santander began to
gut the interior of the building. Moreno sought to document this process of the reform when he
began filming Edificio España in 2007.
As mentioned above, the film begins with an exterior establishing shot of the building. The
shot is taken from the neighboring Torre de Madrid a skyscraper also designed by Otamendi
brothers and completed in 1957, a few years after the inauguration of the Edificio España. During
hi eablihing eence, a eie of ineile gie deail abo he bilding hioic and
cultural importance and describe the scope of the reformation. The ambient sounds of the city can
be heard and the skyscraper vantage point provides an exaggerated high-angle perspective which
e he moemen of he ci belo. Thi iniial eablihing ho emhaie he bilding
immensity, as the massive Edificio España dwarfs the cars and busses down in the street. Yet after

486 The ilen film, hich a ho in Zlea aamen in he bilding, ha been decibed a
a chodama, o a damaiaion of a dibed ae of concione , Loada, In
Zlea Cinehilia of Eca and Eeimen . Alhogh, i cold be aged ha Aquarium
also dramatizes the Edificio España. In it, the agitated bourgeois protagonist frenetically moves
about his well-appointed living room and interacts with various objects including a television, a
telephone, and the titular aquarium. The experimentation with fast motion, zoom, and jump cuts
creates an atmosphere of frenzied delirium within the apartment, while alternating high and low
angle shots draw attention to the intensity and immensity of the building.
487 Ola, Conflico en el Edificio Eaa.

203
hi eence, he camea n o eloe he bilding ineio, eing oide onl once ding
the remainder of the film.
The first interior sequence performs a silent regie of he bilding ineio ace. A
eie of eended aic ho linge oe he bilding acan oom and ecod he objec lef
behind by the former inhabitants: furniture, papers and photographs, computer equipment,
clothing, empty bottles. At this point in filming, the construction workers had already begun to
demolih he bilding ineio. Hoee, inead of focing on he acion of he oke eaing
up flooring and knocking down walls, Moreno films these desolate scenes as a still and silent
contemplation of old abandoned objects. The director describes his interest in these left-behind
objec a imila o los restos de un naufragio (he emain of a hieck). 488 These wasted
emnan ae he coneence of he ame goh ha caied Sain economic miacle the
debris of the storm of progress in Benjaminian terms.489 The objects represent parts of a now-lost
whole, and seem to signal a great catastrophe. The seqence foehado he bilding illne
o come, geing oad he bilding nea -future in which the workers will no longer be
present. At the same time however, the contemplation of abandoned objects in this sequence
gestures towards the past. The objects themselves represent a materialist history; each comprises
a fagmen of he bilding a. The call o mind Benjamin conenion ha one can onl
encone he a hogh fagmen a an image ha flahe a he inan i can be
recognied. 490
In hi ea, Thee on he Philooh of Hio, Walter Benjamin proposes a practice
of hioicim ha ie clal eae ih caio deachmen. Benjamin hioical

488 qtd. in Olías.
489 Benjamin, Illuminations, 258.
490 Benjamin, 255.

204
materialism breaks with classical historicism, which depicts history as a linear narrative of events
always constructed in the service of the victors. For Benjamin, classical historicism uses an
addiie mehod, i me a ma of daa o fill he homogeno, em ime. 491 Benjamin
fhe add ha, Hioicim gie he eenal image of he a; hioical maeialim lie
a unique experience with the past. 492 In other words, these moments of materialist experience
stand alone, outside narrative linearity. They represent a more suspicious form of history that
avoids reconstruction and instead acknowledges the constellations formed by past, present, and
future. As Hannah Arendt argued, historical materialism represents not just a way of practicing
hio, b a a of thinking poetically. 493 Arendt descibe Benjamin hioical hinking a
fed b he een, ok[ing] ih he hogh fagmen i can e fom he a and gahe
abo ielf. 494 In other words, historical materialism contemplates moments instead of telling a
story; it requires being attentive to stops and stillness.
Benjamin oeic hinking i fndamenal o idenifing and ndeanding de. A
Sole age, o comehend de e m hink hio oeicall: oeic ae alead cenal
o conce fomaion he en sorial insights are crucial to the critical impulses that hover
unarticulated on our tongues and that flourish in what some are already saying and others of us
canno hea. 495 In other words, we must recognize the productive capacity of representation in
order to understand the ways in which it acts upon the world around us. Edificio Espaa’s poetic
practices focus on the material in a way that slows narrative drive and allows for a contemplation
of objects and space. That is, while the camera often follows the movement of the demolition, it

491 Benjamin, 262.
492 Benjamin, 262.
493 Aend, Wale Benjamin: 1892 -1940, 50 , my emphasis.
494 Arendt, 50.
495 Stoler, Duress, 36.

205
does not privilege action; the film just as often explores the stillness of the empty building. Indeed,
stillness and movement comprise the main formal and aesthetic tensions in the film. They function
dialectically, as the camera alternates between tracking the violent process of demolition and the
contemplative shots of the items left behind. At times this dialectic tension leads to potent insights.
For example, in one scene the camera follows a worker as he moves about a room to clear the
debris from the demolition. The worker uncovers a memorial urn behind a radiator, presumably
fogoen b one of he bilding fome inhabian. The man eamine he objec in eeen
silence and then carefully places it on top of the radiator in the otherwise empty room. He then
turns back to his task clearing the room to pull at some wires in the wall. The violent motion knocks
the urn to the ground and shatters it. A powerful symbol of memory and loss, the urn is destroyed
in the name of progress, cast into the waste bin of history. This scene illustrates how memory is
erased by the endless cycle of neoliberal development, which is predicated on a linear narrative of
progress. Progress, in this sense, entails a continuous cycle of growth and obsolescence that
replaces older objects to make way for the new.
The docmena iml oide a ie ino Edificio Eaa lage -scale construction
project, yet in doing so, it creates an opportunity for reflection upon the historical consciousness
ha led o Sain financial cii and hich agabl began ding he dicaohi apertura
period. The aperturista olicie eeen he beginning of ha Bon old call neolibealim
eaon, define d a an ode of nomaie eaon that, when it becomes ascendant, takes shape as
a governing rationality extending a specific formulation of economic values, practices, and metrics
o ee dimenion of hman life. 496 For Brown, neoliberal reason does not take a singular form,
but takes diverse shapes and idioms within its encounters with different cultures and political

496 Brown, Undoing the Demos, 30.

206
traditions.497 In all its forms, however, neoliberal reason is marked by the rise of finance capital
and its eventual conversion into a form of political and economic order. Indeed, the apertura
olicie led o boh economic and oliical change ha old e he age fo Sain democac.
For, as Joan Ramón Resina writes regarding the processes that led to the taniion: Oe and
above the ideological agendas of the various opposition movements, the true locomotive of
historical changeo e Ma meahoa no he eolion b he make. 498
While the film includes many similar contemplative moments that privilege stillness, it
also studies the workers as they demolish the building, tracking their progress in a detached
manner. The camera movement for these sequences is achieved through long tracking shots taken
with a hand-held camea. Sch acking ho comie he blk of he film naaie die.
Indeed, the camera movement provides for the pace and structure of the film, as Edificio España
ha no oiceoe o die he naaie and no mic o ce he film affecie ace. In hi a
the film distances itself from narrative filmmaking conventions while also eschewing the didactic
impetus often associated with documentary. The lack of voiceover guidance along with the
handheld camera format places the spectator into the position of the filmmaker, and allows them
to drift through the building. The film thereby presents itself as a journey of discovery as much for
filmmaker as for the audience.
Moreno belongs to a wave of contemporary Spanish filmmakers who are experimenting
with the conventions of documentary storytelling, such as Mercedes Álvarez, José Luis Guerín, or
Isaki Lacuesta. Ye he Moeno formal technique also draws inspiration from early cinema and
Veo kino -ee conce inodced in he eio chae. As the Soviet filmmaker wrote,

497 Brown, 48.
498 Reina, Sho of Memo, 92.

207
cinema chief fncion i he ecoding do cuments, of facts, the recording of life, of historical
ocee. 499 Vertov saw the camera as a tool to record daily life as it happened and he sought to
een a eal film hio ha old docmen eall boh he banal and he momeno.
Likewise, Moeno camea ee cae boh he eciing and he mndane momen of he
bilding demoliion: he film he oke in acion a he demolih he bilding ih machine
and pickaxes, but also as they relax and chat aimlessly on their breaks. The violent and energetic
process of demolition is not easy; the workers are clearly exposed to discomfort and hazards as
they inhale dust and clear the debris in the cold damp building. Moreno, who films and observes
with a Vertov-like recording eye throughout the demolition, also must navigate similar obstacles,
sometimes in the dark. Yet the film detaches itself from these effects; it does not follow the workers
or exalt their labor. Although Moreno talks with the workers from behind the camera and films
them working and socializing together, the film privileges objects over human subjects.
While most of the building is unoccupied, one resident remains in his apartment throughout
the noisy demolition process. The only evidence of his presence are the signs taped to the wall
aleing vivienda ocupada (occied home) and he a ain eminding oke no demoler
(do not demolish). Yet, the work on the building continues. The building is demolished, wall by
wall, around the last inhabited apartment, a real-life eceaion of Jo Niee Conde 1957 film
El inquilino (The Tenant) mentioned in Chapter Two. Indeed, there is a lineage of Spanish films
about the complicated process of finding suitable housing that stretches at least back to films such
as El inquilino o Maco Feei El pisito (The Little Apartment, 1958) and forward to Max
Lemcke Cinco metros cuadrados (Five Square Meters, 2011). These types of stories fit in with
the narratives of shared precarity proposed by Allbritton and Labrador Méndez. These films serve

499 Vertov, Kino-eye, 101.

208
as a reminder that precarity is not new, but has always been the underlying condition at the very
core of Western capitalism.
Moeno camea, hoee, doe no follo he oke o he la inhabian o fom an
emaheic bidge, o a humanistic crisis narrative. Instead, it focuses on the materialist history
of the space. For example, in one particularly compelling scene of Edificio España, the camera
finally enters the last inhabited apartment and we meet the resident, Germán, as he prepares to
leae hi aamen fo good. Moeno handheld camea eloe Gemn aamen a he
aging tenant gazes out the window and reflects on the loss of his wife, with whom he had shared
the apartment for decades. Germán reflects on the space, staring straight into the camera straight
a he adience: Hoy estoy recordando mucho de mi mujer, esto ha sido como destruir su obra
(Toda I am emembeing m ife a lo, hi ha been like deoing he life ok). While hi
cene gge a naaie of hman aged, he film doe no deelo Gemn o. Gemn
words remind the viewer of the lives and memories that are erased as the building is demolished
and reformed floor by floor, room by room. But when Germán leaves, stepping out of the space of
he film and ino he b ee, he nee once look back. Moeno camea linge oe he
empty rooms instead, letting this emptiness stand in for loss.
The film is concerned with the materiality of memory, but also with the ephemerality of
those memories in the face of the cycles of construction and progress. As such, the next scene
ho he all of Geman aamen b eing demolished, erasing the material traces of their
inhabian. Moeno camea -eye haunts the desolate gutted building, presenting, in the
filmmake em, la idea de ea en n lga that is, an idea of being in and of inhabiting a
space.500 Moreno filmed without a script and did not review the footage he gathered until he had

500 Hidalgo, El apoyo ciudadano para mostrar la película ha sido imecindible.

209
finished filming the entire project. The filmmaker went to the building at the same hours as the
oke in ode o cae he dail hhm of he ace. B Moeno doen t always follow the
workers, apparently allowing himself to drift aimlessly through building, recording from his
handheld camera as he goes. His is a method of the encounter. In this way, Moreno practices a
kind of agoraphobic dérive. Moeno camea, hic h only leaves the building once in the film,
records a drifting micro-geogah of he bilding ineio hogh a eie of long ho. Ye
this cinematic mapping does not situate the viewer in space in the way that panoptic cartographic
shots do. On the contrary, the gutted building produces a great deal of disorientation, and the
occaional eile idenifing he bilding floo ae he onl he mean hogh hich he
film situates the viewer or provides any sort of orienting map. Getting lost is one of the major
heme in he film. In one cene, he bilding eci gad eeal ha he en he nigh of hi
honeymoon in one of the rooms of the old Hotel Plaza. But when he attempts to find the room he
also becomes lost; the building has changed as his memories have faded. In this way, the building
is a labyrinth of forgotten memories.
As the Debord posited, getting lost forms part of the process of discovery. As he describes
he iaioni acice: In a die one o moe eon ding a certain period of time drop their
relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the
eain and he encone he find hee. 501 In other words, dérive calls for a willful abandon, an
eschewal of maps and plans, a disregard of time, and a surrender to the chance encounters
presented by the landscape. Moeno filmmaking, hogh a oce of aaenl aimle dif,
ma he bilding, demonaing ha caogahic endencie need no ala be colo ed by the

501 Debod, Theo of he Die, 62.

210
imle o cone o b he langage of oe and i endenc o nif. 502 As Bruno reminds
us, cinema is a language of motion and emotion. In giving visuality to movement and overlaying
a haptic visuality onto the filmed space, cinema allows us to sense the landscape as we visually
ael hogh it. As it is primarily driven and concerned with the space within which it is
practiced, the derive is fundamentally a materialist practice.503
It is thus through a sort of chance encounter that the film captures the effects of the 2008
market crash, which cause the film to shift in pace. Construction on the building stalled shortly
after the crash, leaving the Edificio España to sit empty as a highly conspicuous shell. This
presented an unexpected and meaningful turn of events for Moreno, who had only set out to
document the process of remodeling the iconic building.504 Inadvertently, he had documented the
Edificio España as it became a metonym for the 2008 crisis a prominent reflection of the
countless unfinished construction projects across the country. For when the housing and
construction sectors that had driven the Spanish economy crashed after the 2008 financial crisis,
they left eerie vacancie aco he con ban and bban landcae. Thee abandoned
spaces appeared across Spain in the form of unfinished construction projects, empty housing
developments, vacant public infrastructure works, and even abandoned neighborhoods, like
Valdel diced aboe. Moeno h cache Edificio Eaa a a cooad: he bilding ae
as a ruin presents a reflection on the weak foundations of the economic miracle of Franco-era urban
development, while the stalled reconstruction project represents another failure the ruin of the

502 Bruno, Atlas of Emotion, 268.
503 The practitioner of the dérive shares this chaaceiic maeialim ih Benjamin fl âneur.
A Aend age, he fl âneur, through the gestus of purposeless strolling, turns his back to the
cod een a he i oelled and e b i. Aend, Wale Benjamin: 1892 -1940, 13.
504 Hidalgo, El apoyo ciudadano para mostrar la película ha sido imecindible.

211
fe. Thee in of Fancoim ae a emainde and a eminde, of he neen emoal
edimenaion hogh ih a egime leae hei mak and conine o affec he een. 505
The only time the camera leaves the building is when Moreno and the spectator, sutured
into the sequence through the first person perspective of the hand-held camera takes a truck from
the construction site to a scrap yard. The truck lumbers down Gran Vía with its load of debris; its
powerfl dieel engine hake he camea. O he indo i Madid gande bolead, he
street that sought to position the city as a 20th century European capital. Soon, the truck takes a
higha o he oki of he ci, and Moeno aeling kino -eye records the construction
projects of the periphery, as large cranes tower over high apartment blocks. The truck dumps its
load at the scrap yard, and the camera observes as heavy machinery grinds the furnishings of the
Edificio España to ever-smaller particles of dust. Just as the discarded bricks in the previous film
were a sign of the larger tragedies suffered under the regime of crisis, the demolition of these debris
belies the demolition of human memories and dreams.
The film slows pace as the workers are laid off as a result of the economic downturn and
slowly begin to leave the building. The vacant building becomes quiet, but the camera lingers,
making clear who or what i he oagoni of he film. We don hea he oie of he neal
200 Spanish and international workers on the project whose lives are interrupted by
unemployment, although a security guard mentions that many have returned to their countries of
origin. Instead, the film is bookended by silent shots of the empty building, as Moreno camea
once again haunts the gutted structure. In these still shots the Edificio España is now completely
necogniable. An ineile decibe he fi ineio ho a Plana 23, Viienda de Gemn
(Floo 23, Gemn home). Ye iho an obj ects or furnishings for reference, the building is

505 Stoler, Duress, 340.

212
rendered totally disorienting. If not for the intertitle, there is no trace of the former occupant. With
the objects and the memory they represent removed from the building, the Edificio España
becomes an empty shell. Moreno argues that his film suggests that memory in Sain democac
has been lost within its own founding structures, as a form of collective amnesia.506 The film ends
with a visual metaphor for this erasure of memory as the lights shut off in this desolate landscape.
Moeno decibe he film a a egio de memoia del lga (a ecoding of he lace
memory), an observation which suggests that the building itself has a memory.507 Indeed, place
and memory have a close relation. In the art of mnemotechnics, memory is closely linked to both
aial and ial eceion. Ye he deolae ho in he film final momen allo he Edificio
España to tell i on memo, i on gho o. A one of he eci gad ae, Un
edificio a ai de e iene ciea edad, cieo iemo, a cea na leenda, na hioia (A
building, after it reaches a certain age, a certain time, begins to create a legend, a history). Every
place has its story or perhaps, more accurately, stories. As I argued in Chapter One, even when
they are constructed in durable stone, landscapes are not singular or immutable. Places register
everything that has happened, but they also may hint at everything that awaits us. Traversing,
experiencing, being in, these spaces makes their stories available to the present moment.
Moreno spent over a year filming and began to cut and edit the film in 2010. Edificio
España was completed by 2011, and it began the festival circuit that same year. Soon afterward,
however, Banco Santander issued an embargo on the film, alleging that it would jeopardize their
commercial operations with the building. As a result, all distribution of Edificio España was halted
for a year and 3 months as the director fought to release the film. By the time the film finally was

506 Reche, El veto del banco santander me provocó mucho dolor y facin.
507 Hidalgo, El apoyo ciudadano para mostrar la película ha sido imecindible.

213
eleaed in 2012, a ale of he bilding a in he ok. The bilding eenal ale o he
Chinese corporation Dalian Wanda for 265 million in 2014 was seen as early evidence that the
property market finally was on the mend.508 Hoee, he go lan o emodel he bilding
iconic façade were not approved by the local government and three years later the building sold
again, this time to the Grupo Baraka, a financial group with criminal ties to the economic crisis.509
In an illaion of he cclical nae of Madid moden ban deelomen, Ri Hoel (a
Murcian chain) recently completed construction of a new luxury hotel within the building in 2019.
It is pertinent to ask then, what kind of ghost story Edificio España really tells. For, instead of
documenting the demolition of a symbol of the late-dicaohi caiali aiaion, he film
serves a testament to their endurance.

Mapping Sovereignty: Infrastructure Space in La ciudad occulta
Moeno lae film i moe looel elaed o he financial cii, a he ci enhiaic
infrastructure spending in the first decade of the 21st century sets the scene for a reflection on
Madid echnologicall -adanced inface neok and een an image of Madid
urban future. La ciudad oculta ha a ceain aeheic affini ih Diga Veo claic ci
symphony, Man with a Movie Camera (1929). Like Veo film, La ciudad oculta is a form of
ban jone, a mode of eeiencing he e fabic of he ci. B Moeno film alo da
fom he dehmaniing aeheic of cience ficion film, ch a Sanle Kbick 2001: A

508 The company is owned by Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin, who also purchased 20% of the
Alico de Madid occe eam in 2015. Accoding o Ma Kae Donoan, Wang Jianlin
investments in Spanish public and cultural life . . . represent the influence of globalized capital
on ha, adiionall, ha been conideed naional cle. Donoan, Se en de la cii,
391.
509 Trinitario Casanova, the owner of Baraka Group was sentenced to a fine of 108,000 euros for
manipulating stock values in 2008.

214
Space Odyssey (1968). For instead of the classic city symphony journey through a familiar
cityscape, La ciudad oculta is an uncanny descent into darkness, revealing the strange web of built
infrastructure that keeps the above-ground city running. Infrastructure, as defined by Keller
Easterling is a hidden bae the binding medium or current between objects of positive
coneence, hae, and la. 510 For Easterling, this network includes roads and waterways,
electricity lines, and fiberoptic cables, but also ideas and styles of management. Moeno hidden
ci i in fac no o hidden afe all. Fo alhogh mch of i iible fom ae conained
ndegond, i effec ae no; he film eeal ho inface [goen] he ace of
eeda life. 511
Read alongside Edificio España, La ciudad oculta is at first a bit confounding. The film
has no dialogue. While workers are still present in the film, they do not develop camaraderie with
the filmmaker on camera. And while the Edifico España features one of Madid mo emblematic
buildings, were it not for the coded references to the city above in the form of a subway map,
Madrid would not be recognizable in this second film at all. It seems that La ciudad oculta could
take place anywhere. Indeed, infrastructure space has increasingly become globalized as its forms
and networks are expanded repeated across the world from Dubai to Delhi, Mexico City to Madrid.
In hi ene, Madid enhiaic inface ending cold be ead a a ign of i fll
integration into global neoliberalism. In the early 2000s the city undertook major infrastructure
improvements, including shifting the M-30 freeway underground. The tunnels for the roadway
comprise a nearly ten-kilometer underground network and man of he film cene e xplore these
aage and he ailia ce ha o hem. In diecing a lage a of he ci affic

510 Easterling, Extrastatecraft, 11.
511 Easterling, 11.

215
underground, the M-30 tunnels have led to notable improvements in congestion and air pollution.
Yet this frenzied infrastructure development also created an opportunity for Moreno by providing
a sci-fi like scene for exploration.
La ciudad oculta, it seems, is driven by a psychogeographic curiosity, a desire to explore
and become lost within infrastructure space. Moreno takes us into those dark depths, the tunnels,
ee, and elecical gid ha ce Madid ndegond geogah; he eloe he
startling networks of technology and ecology beneath our feet. But, the journey does not always
follow conventional cinematic visuality. These alien industrial depths present an eerie space in
which vision does not always hold primacy, refiguring the traditional hierarchies of cinematic
perception. Indeed, if we take for granted the conventional media genealogy of photography as the
antecedent to cinema, this film is a bit confounding. Photography, or light writing, privileges light
over darkness. Exposure to light is foundational to the medium, as it is to vision itself. The
cinematography of La ciudad oculta embraces darkness in a way that defamiliarizes objects and
image. Fo eamle, he oening eence fom a o of filmic ome loeil of a glining in
the darkness which shift their form once a light source passes over them [Fig. 6.2, Fig. 6.3]. In this
sequence and in others too the film slips poetically between the claustrophobic spaces of the
tunnels to the infinite expanse of outer space. In a similar way, the film makes the metro train
barreling through the tunnels appear as much a spaceship as a familiar form of mass public transit.
In this sense, the film manipulates camera settings to decenter visual mastery and thereby
defamiliarize the everyday spaces of the city.

216

Fig. 6.2: The effect of the opening sequence recalls the night sky.

Fig. 6.3: A light source reveals water droplets on a cement wall.

The film eiaeic cinemaic ake o he nknon hogh man of conenional
techniques used in Edificio España, such as long traveling shots, but also through less common
technological interventions. In Vertovian fashion, Moreno does not limit the camera to the
perceptions of the human eye, but allows access to a world that we cannot see. Using technologies
such as night vision, robotic cameras, and microscopy, we are able to perceive the invisible.
Likeie, Veo ogh o libeae he camea fom he ee, ha i, o fee he mechanical kino
eye of the camera from having to replicate the work of the human eye.512 Similar to the telescope

512 Vertov, Kino-Eye, 16

217
or the microscope, Vertov conceived of the camera as a tool to penetrate deeper into the visible
world, to explore and record visual phenomena.513 While often these technologies are often put
into the service of visual regimes of surveillance, here, Moreno enlists them into the poetics of
cinema.
In doing so, the film makes sensible the material infrastructures of the city and lays bare a
concentration of power that often escapes scrutiny. A Eaeling age, hee ce [hich
are] far removed from familiar legislative processes, dynamic systems of space, information, and
power, generate de facto forms of polity faster than even quasi-official forms of governance can
legislate them. 514 While many of these infrastructure projects are remainders of the dictatorship
period, others such as the metro date back to previous regimes or are products of the democratic
eiod. Madid inface ace i a eminde of ho egime of oe take multiple and
laeed fom. A Eaeling age, A a ie of mlile, oelaing, o need fom of
sovereignty, where domestic and transnational jurisdictions collide, infrastructure space becomes
a medium of what might be called extrastatecraft—a portmanteau describing the often undisclosed
aciiie oide of, in addiion o, and omeime een in anehi ih aecaf. 515 The
global expansion of such infrastructure space speaks to the contemporary diffusion of sovereignty
in Spain. Infrastructure space does not necessarily imply a democratic distribution of power.
Instead, power is increasingly concentrated away from the state, and into the hands of private
utilities and the stakeholders in global information systems.

513 Vertov, Kino-Eye, 67
514 Easterling, Extrastatecraft, 15.
515 Easterling, 15.

218
Conclusion: Mapping a Materialist Future
In exposing the dense networks between human and non-human subjects and the way in which
these impinge upon social and political realities, these materialist documentaries allow for a
broader understanding of the 2008 financial crisis. While typical crisis narratives in film and
literature may feature lives marked as precarious or disposable, the crisis narratives studied here
elucidate that the politics of crisis do not begin or end with human affairs, but are instead tied up
in material networks. In concerning themselves with a materialist perspective, these films show
how to think in the continuum between non-human and human affairs, between economic and
social systems. In short, they allow for a view of history both as a social product, but also as an
object to be studied with cautious detachment in the tradition of a materialist historian.
As I have argued, the 2008 global financial crisis led to a point of exhaustion for the
memorialistic narrative in Spain, especially those narratives relating the memories of the civil war
and Francoist past.516 These narratives were cast as a nostalgic distraction at best, as the present
came to be defined by the acute traumatic event of the crisis. However, the memory of the past is
in fact more important than ever in the face of the 2008 financial crisis, for viewing the past through
the dialectical lens of historical materialism draws attention to the ways in which the crises of the
present are an inheritance of the crises of the past. In this view, the 2008 financial crisis is no
longer an exceptional event, or an interruption of democratic stability. The temporality of crisis
ha a baked ino he dicaohi conined a a feae of Sain democaic een. Thi
feature is an indicaion of ha Sole old call a ange conini. 517 That is, while the

516 Brown, Undoing the Demos, 21.
517 Stoler, Duress, 28.

219
particulars are different the democracy centered on distinct actors and configurations of power there exists a discernible repetition of the temporal and political logics of the dictatorship.
In this sense, the 1981 Tejero coup was a form of unnecessary, retrograde fascism. In the
neoliberal space of late 20th century Spain, there was no longer any need for an obvious political
coup, and this is precisely why it was set to fail. Instead, as Brown has shown, neoliberal capital
ha aged i on, moe ealh, co a i limael ndemine democac goening eaon,
ing a democaic ih an economic ocabla and ocial concione. 518 Brown argues
that neoliberalim i a oliical aionali oiginall bon in ooiion o facim. 519 Yet, as we
have seen in the case of Spain, this shift to neoliberal vocabulary began in the decades before the
transition to democracy, as the regime worked its economic miracle and converted proletarios
(proletariats) to propietarios (property holders). This shift from a political to an economic
vocabulary is an example of how neoliberal reason, according to Brown, disseminates its model
of the market into all domains of life, even those where money is not a fundamental issue.520
In hi a, neolibealim ealh co mio he a in hich Fancoim enangled
itself into everyday life in Spain, producing a social consciousness that shaped understandings of
family life and that policed and produced the boundaries of memory and affect. In other words,
Francoism presented a fertile ground for the extension of neoliberal reason, which ultimately
mioed facim, alhogh i oe [ae] facele and iniible -handed. 521 Neoliberalism

518 Brown, Undoing the Demos, 21.
519 Brown, 219.
520 Brown, 31.
521 Brown, 219. Brown clarifies: This is not to say that neoliberalism is fascism or that we live
in fascist times. It is only to note convergences between elements of twentieth-century fascism
and inadvertent effects of neoliberal rationality today. These convergences appear in the
valorization of a national economic project and sacrifice for a greater good into which all are
integrated, but from which most must not expect personal benefit. They appear as well in the

220
evolved and extended itself easily in the context of the democracy as well. For, as argued in
Chapter Three, democracy is still yet an empty concept, a meaning in waiting. That is to say that,
Bon demo i ndone becae i a nee fll d one to begin with. For this reason,
democracy is easily colonized by neoliberal logics that ultimately erode its claims to equality,
representation, or even freedom. For in our contemporary neoliberal world, freedom most
prominently figures as a deregulated marketplace. In this way, Spaniards inhabit many of the
enduring conditions of the dictatorship which are increasingly refigured by other post-fascist
logics.
But while the financial crisis of 2008 largely turned the attention of the public and the
governing elite away from the memories of dictatorship and the civil war, the protest movements
it brought forth began to generate renewed interested to the transition to democracy. As Kostis
Kornetis has shown, for the indignados (indignant) movement that emerged from the financial
cii, he 1970 hemele became an ie of oen coneaion, inead of he ciil a o he
Fancoi eiod, a had been he cae h fa. 522 This new group of protestors came to reject the
consensus of the Spanish transition, identifying a dialectical history in which the crisis has already
been the instrument of rule.
A Benjamin age, The adiion of he oeed eache ha he ae of
emegenc in hich e lie i no he ece ption but the rule. We must attain to a conception of
hio ha i in keeing ih hi inigh. 523 However, if the crisis serves as a justification for
the consolidation of power, as a tool of domination, it also provides an opportunity for restructure.

growing devaluation of politics, publics, intellectuals, educated citizenship, and all collective
purposes apart from economy and security.
522 Konei, I Thee a Fe in Thi Pa?, 87.
523 Benjamin, Illuminations, 257.

221
A Benjamin conine, i i o ak o bing abo a eal ae of emegenc, and hi ill
imoe o oiion in he ggle ih Facim. 524 While fascism has evolved since
Benjamin ea, he ggle fo oliical and ocial alenaie emain. Fo Benjamin,
eolion alo bing abo a ae of emegenc, a hioical eceion, in ha he elode he
coninm of hio ih he f orce of their actions.525 It is possible then, for a crisis to launch a
leap into a more democratic politics, for it to launch us into the realm of the democratic possibilities
to come.

524 Benjamin, 257.
525 Benjamin, 261.

222
Works Cited

Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Meridian. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1998.

. State of Exception. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

. The Endle Cii a an Inmen of Poe: In Coneaion ih Giogio
Agamben. Veobook.com, Jne 4, 20 13. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1318-the-
endless-crisis-as-an-instrument-of-power-in-conversation-with-giorgio-agamben.

Agila, Calo. Fantasía española: Negra sangre caliente. In Cine fantástico y de terror
español, by Carlos Aguilar, 11 73. Donostia Kultura, 1999.

Aguilar, Carlos, and Eloy de la Iglesia. Conocer a Eloy de la Iglesia. Edited by Carlos Aguilar.
San Sebastián: Filmoteca Vasca, 1996.

Aguilar Fernández, Paloma. Memoria y olvido de la guerra civil espanola. Madrid: Alianza
Editorial, 1996.

Allbion, Dean. Pime Rik: The Poliic of Pain and Sffeing in Sanih Cii Cinema.
Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies: Spain in Crisis:15-M and the Culture of Indignation
15, no. 1 2 (2014): 101 115. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2014.931663.

Allinson, Mark. A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodóvar. London: I.B.Tauris, 2001.

. The Concion of Yoh in Sain in he 1980 and 1990. In Contemporary
Spanish Cultural Studies, edited by Barry Jordan and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas, 265 73.
London: Arnold, 2000.

Almodóvar, Pedro, Frédéric Strauss, and Yves Baignères. Almodóvar on Almodóvar. London;
Boston: Faber and Faber, 1996.

Alonso, Dámaso. Hijos de la ira. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, Colección Austral, 1946.

Aled, Alicia. Edcaional Polic in a Changing Socie . In Spanish Cultural Studies: An
Introduction. The Struggle for Modernity, edited by Jo Labanyi and Helen Graham, 271 76. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Aend, Hannah. Wale Benjamin: 1892 -1940. In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections,
edited by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn, 1 55. New York: Schocken Books,
1968.

Aee, Jo Li. Seech. Madid, n.d 1959. Roll 84, Docmen 9366. Madrid: Archivo
Nacional Francisco Franco, 1939-1975.

223
Augé, Marc. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. London: Verso, 2008.

Bataille, Georges. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939. Edited and translated by
Allan Stoekl. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin.
Cambridge: Belknap Press: Harvard University Press, 2003.

. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Edited by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry
Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1978.

. Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, 4: 1938–1940. Edited by Howard Eiland and
Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge: Belknap Press: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press
Books, 2010.

Belan, Laen. Slo Deah (Soeeign, Obei, Laeal Agenc). Critical Inquiry 33, no. 4
(2007): 754 780. https://doi.org/10.1086/521568.

Behie, Nanc. Imágenes recalcitrantes: el caso de la proclamación de Juan Carlos I como Rey
de España (22 de noiembe de 1975). Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodistico 22, no. 1
(2016): 23 47. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_ESMP.2016.v22.n1.52581.

. La eicalidad elaia del Valle de lo Cado aaae cinemaogfico
durante la anicin, n noed de mmoie. Anos 90 22, no. 42 (2015): 87 114.

Bolen No. 1. Ceno de Edio Sociale de la Sana C del Valle de lo Cado, Ocobe
1961. Roll 146, Document 17946. Madrid: Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco.

Boletsi, M. Toad a Vial Middle Voice: Cii, Dioeion and Secali in Sain
Hologam Poe. Komparatistik: Jahrbuch Der Deutschen Gesellschaft Für
Allgemeine Und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, 2018.
http://hdl.handle.net/1887/71035.

Boruchoff, Daid A. On he Place of Madne, Deiance, and Eccenici in Don Qijoe.
Hispanic Review 70, no. 1 (2002): 1 23. https://doi.org/10.2307/3246934.

Britt Arredondo, Christopher. Quixotism: The Imaginative Denial of Spain’s Loss of Empire.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Boston: MIT Press,
2015.

Bruno, Giuliana. Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York: Verso,
2002.

224

Buse, Peter, Núria Triana-Toribio, and Andy Willis. The Cinema of Álex de La Iglesia, 2013.

Byrnes, Corey. Fixing Landscape: A Techno-Poetic History of China’s Three Gorges. New
York: Columbia University Press, 2019..

Caballeo Ve, Migel. Cibele en el palacio de los soviets: Debates sobre
monumentalidad en la guerra civil eaola. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 17, no.
4 (October 2016): 323 41. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2016.1240434.

Cameon, Ban. Sain in Cii: 15 -M and the Culture of Indignaion. Journal of Spanish
Cultural Studies 15, no. 1 2 (2014): 1 11.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2014.1002601.

Carabancheleando. Diccionario de las periferias : mtodos y saberes autnomos desde los
barrios. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2017.

Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Third edition.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Translated by Edith Grossman. New York: Ecco, 2005.

Chisholm, Dianne. Queer Constellations: Subcultural Space in the Wake of the City.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid. Guía de arquitectura y urbanismo de Madrid. Vol. I,
El casco antiguo. Madrid: Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, 1982.

Comiello, Malcolm Alan. Fom Planning o Deign: The Cle of Fleible Accmlaion in
Post-Cambio Madid. Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, no. 3 (1999): 199 220.

Coverley, Merlin. Psychogeography. 2nd ed. Harpenden: Oldcastle Books, 2010.

Cenha, Kimbele. Demaginaliing he Ineecion of Race and Se: A Black Femini
Ciie of Anidiciminaion Docine, Femini Theo and Aniaci Poliic.
University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989, no. 1 (1989): 139 67.

Cmbagh, Jin. Afelife and Bae Life: The Valle of he Fallen a a Paadigm of
Goenmen. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 12, no. 4 (2011): 419 438.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2011.691670.

Dapena, Gead. Making Sain Fahionable. In A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar, 495 523.
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325360.ch23.

225
Debod, G. Inodcion o a Ciie of Uban Geogah. In Situationist International
Anthology, translated by Ken Knabb, 8 11. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006.

. Theo of he Die. In Situationist International Anthology, translated by Ken
Knabb, 62 67. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006.

Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1996.

. Hoiiali (7) . Unpublished seminar. February 14, 1996.

. Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.

. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New
International. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Deen, Thoma. le de La Igleia a Ae?: Seeming/ Being and Ideni. In Capital
Inscriptions: Essays on Hispanic Literature, Film and Urban Space, in Honor of
Malcolm Alan Compitello, edited by Benjamin Fraser, 303 18. Newark, Del: Juan de la
Cuesta, 2012.

Easterling, Keller. Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. London: Verso, 2016.

Edelman, Lee. Rea Windo Glahole. In Out Takes: Essays on Queer Theory and Film,
edited by Ellis Hanson, 72 96. Series Q. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.

Eisenstein, Sergei M., and Yve-Alain Boi. Monage and Achiece. Tanlaed b Michael
Glenny. Assemblage, no. 10 (1989): 110 31. https://doi.org/10.2307/3171145.

Encarnación, Omar. Democracy Without Justice in Spain: The Politics of Forgetting. University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

E, Bad, and Deina Kakodaki. Inodcion. In All about Almodóvar: A Passion for
Cinema, 1 34. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/socal/detail.action?docID=471760.

Erll, Asid. Clal Memo Sdie: An Inodcion. In A Companion to Cultural Memory
Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, edited by Ansgar Nunning
and Astrid Erll, 1 19. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2008.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110207262.

Faulkner, Sally. A Cinema of Contradiction: Spanish Film in the 1960s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2006.

226
Fernández-Cebin, Ana, and Vico Peo Zoco. La o de Vo , o a qué suena el
omofacimo. El Cuaderno (blog), July 13, 2019.
https://elcuadernodigital.com/2019/07/13/la-voz-de-vox-o-a-que-suena-el-
posmofascismo/.

Fernández Florez, Wenceslao. Una isla en el Mar rojo. Madrid: Ed. españolas, 1942.

Fendi, Fancico. Guerras sin fin: guía para descifrar el Valle de los Caídos en la España
contemporánea. Politica y Sociedad 48, no. 3 (2011): 481 500.

Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books, 2009.

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: a History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New
York: Pantheon, 1965.

.The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert J Hurley.
New York: Vintage, 1990.

. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage
Books, 2006.

Fouz-Hennde, Saniago. Me Cuesta Tanto Olvidarte: Mecano and the Movida Remixed,
Reiied and Reackaged. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 10, no. 2 (June 1, 2009):
167 87. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636200902990695.

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. Translated by David McLintock. New York: Penguin Classics,
2003.

Gme Mnde, Calo Albeo. Efeco beio de la eein: ealidad
construcción social en La semana del asesino. L’Atalante: revista de estudios
cinematográficos, no. 23 (2017): 81 94.

Graham, Helen. The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction. 1 edition. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005.

. The Poliic of 1992. In Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction. The Struggle for
Modernity, edited by Jo Labanyi and Helen Graham. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1995.

. The War and Its Shadow: Spain’s Civil War in Europe’s Long Twentieth Century.
Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2012.

Gallero, José Luis. Sólo se vive una vez: esplendor y ruina de la movida madrileña. Madrid:
Árdora Ediciones, 1991.

227
Gonick, Sohie. Making Madid Moden: Globaliaion and Ineali in a Eoean Caial.
Lucero 21, no. 1 (2010): 20 34.

Gordon, Avery. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Graff Zivin, Erin. Anarchaeologies: Reading as Misreading. New York: Fordham University
Press, 2020.

Gutiérrez-Albilla, Julián Daniel. Aesthetics, Ethics and Trauma in the Cinema of Pedro
Almodóvar. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

. Queering Buñuel: Sexual Dissidence and Psychoanalysis in His Mexican and Spanish
Cinema. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2008.

Heoh, Andea. Sie of Memo and Dimemo: The Valle of he Fallen in Sain.
Journal of Genocide Research: The Memorialization of Genocide 16, no. 4 (2014): 463 485. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2014.975948.

Henele, Chiine. In/Aheniciie: Moida Yoh Cle in Moion. In Toward a Cultural
Archive of La Movida: Back to the Future, 60 77. Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press, 2013.

Hidalgo, Anonio. El apoyo ciudadano para mostrar la película ha sido imecindible. La
Opinión de Murcia. February 2, 2014.
https://ocio.laopiniondemurcia.es/cine/noticias/nws-275614-el-apoyo-ciudadano-mostrar-
pelicula-ha-sido-imprescindible.html.

Hich, Maianne. The Geneaion of Pomemo. Poetics Today 29, no. 1 (Spring 2008):
103 28. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-2007-019.

Hoyos, Héctor. Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of
Extraction in Contemporary Latin America. New York: Columbia University Press,
2019. https://doi.org/10.7312/hoyo19304.

Ibe, Jan Calo. Memo, Poliic, and he Po -Taniion in Almoda Cinema. In A
Companion to Pedro Almodóvar, 153 75. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, 2013.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325360.ch7.

Iglesia, Eloy de la, and Antonio Fo. La Semana Del Aeino. Sci. Madrid: Filmoteca
Española, 1971.

Iglesias, Pablo. Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of Democracy in Europe.
London: Verso, 2015.

228
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1992.

. Pomodenim and Conme Socie. In The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern
Culture, edited by Hal Foster, 111 25. Seattle: Bay Press, 1987.

Jáuregui, Fernando, and Manuel Ángel Menéndez. Lo que nos queda de Franco : Símbolos,
personajes, leyes y costumbres veinte años después. Madrid: Temas de hoy, 1995.

Jli Da, Sano. Echa al olvido. Memoria y amnistía en la transición a la democacia.
Claves de Razón Práctica 129 (2003): 105 25.

Juliá Díaz, Santos, David R Ringrose, and Cristina Segura Graíño. Madrid: historia de una
capital. Madrid: Alianza Ediciones, 1994.

Keller, Patricia. Ghostly Landscapes: Film, Photography, and the Aesthetics of Haunting in
Contemporary Spanish Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.

. The Valle, he Monmen, and he Tomb: Noe on he Place of Hioical Memo.
HIOL: Hispanic Issues On Line, no. 11 (2012): 64 86.

Kermode, Frank. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000.

Kinde, Maha. Refiging Sociali Sain: An Inodcion. In Refiguring Spain: Cinema/
Media/ Representation, edited by Marsha Kinder, 1 32. Durham: Duke University Press,
1997.

Koch, Tommao. Almoda: Mis películas demostraban que la democracia española era
real. El País. August 30, 2019.
https://elpais.com/cultura/2019/08/29/actualidad/1567085211_573422.html.

Konei, Koi. I Th ee a Fe in Thi Pa? Analing 15M Inicae Relaion o he
Tanicin. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 15, no. 1 2 (April 3, 2014): 83 98.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2014.938432.

La Tade (Con Bibi Andeon). Madid: RTVE, Ma 6, 1 987. http://www.rtve.es/alac-
arta/videos/la-tarde/tarde-bibi-ander- sen-05-06-1987/4487840/.

Labanyi, Jo. Doing Thing: Emoion, Affec, and Maeiali. Journal of Spanish Cultural
Studies 11, no. 3 4 (2010): 223 233. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2010.538244.

. Hio and Hanolog; o, Wha Doe One Do ih he Gho of he Pa?
Reflections on Spanish Film and Fiction of the Post-Fanco Peiod. In Disremembering
the Dictatorship: The Politics of Memory in the Spanish Transition to Democracy, edited
by Joan Ramón Resina, 65 82. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2000.

229

. The Poliic of Memo in Conemoa Sain. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies
9, no. 2 (July 1, 2008): 119 25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636200802283621.

. P o Modenim and he Poblem of Clal Ideni. In Spanish Cultural Studies: An
Introduction. The Struggle for Modernity, edited by Jo Labanyi and Helen Graham.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Labado Mnde, Gemn. The Cannibal Wae: The C lal Logic of Sain Temoali of
Cii (Reolion, Biooliic, Hnge and Memo). Journal of Spanish Cultural
Studies 15, no. 1 2 (2014): 241 271. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2014.935013.

. Letras arrebatadas : poesía y química en la transición española. Madrid: Devenir,
2009.

. La ida bime: la ciclacin de hioia de ida como ecnologa de
imaginación política en la crisis española (2007 2012). Hispanic Review 80, no. 4
(2012): 557 581. https://doi.org/10.1353/hir.2012.0041.

Langenohl, Andea. Memo in Po -Ahoiaian Socieie. In A Companion to Cultural
Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, edited by Astrid Erll
and Ansgar Nunning, 163 73. Amsterdam: De Gruyter, 2008.

Larson, San. Achiece, Ubanim, and La Moida Madilea. In Toward a Cultural
Archive of La Movida: Back to the Future, 166 85. Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press, 2013.
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/socal/detail.action?docID=1574433.

. The Saial Fi: Cenohi, Pblic Hoing, and he Aleed Meaning of El
Inilino. In Capital Inscriptions: Essays in Hispanic Literature, Film and Urban Space
in Honor of Malcolm Compitello, edited by Benjamin Fraser. Newark, Del: Juan de la
Cuesta, 2012.

Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1993.

Lao Reboll, Anonio. Maclinidade Gneica: Toma Ciminale En La Semana Del
Aeino (1971). Dossiers Feministes, 2002, 171 86.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. 1 edition.
Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 1992.

. The Secifici of he Ci. In Writings on Cities, edited by Eleonore Kofman and
Elizabeth Lebas, 1 edition., 100 104. Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996.

230
Lippit, Akira. Cinema without Reflection: Jacques Derrida’s Echopoiesis and Narcissism Adrift.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016.

López Hernández, Isidro, and Emmanuel Rodríguez. Fin de ciclo: financiarización, territorio y
sociedad de propietarios en la onda larga del capitalismo hispano (1959-2010). Madrid:
Traficantes de Sueños, 2010.

Loada, Ma. In Zlea Cinehilia of Eca and Eeimen. Sense of Cinema 56
(October 2010).

Loilla, Calo. En lo limie de la ealidad: la maginalidad el ae bg. In Conocer a
Eloy de la Iglesia, edited by Carlos Aguilar, 49 77. San Sebastián: Filmoteca Vasca,
1996.

Luna-Gacia, Anonio. Ciie of Sain , Localiie on he Edge of an Ideni Beakdon. Cities
20, no. 6 (2003): 377 379. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2003.08.009.

Marsh, Steven. Popular Spanish Film Under Franco: Comedy and the Weakening of the State.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Martin-Márquez, Susan. Disorientations: Spanish Colonialism in Africa and the Performance of
Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

McDonogh, Thoma. Siaioni Sace. October Vol 67 (Winter 1994): 58 77.

Medina, Alberto. Exorcismos de La Memoria: Políticas y Poéticas de La Melancolía En La
España de La Transición. Madrid: Ediciones Libertarias, 2001.

Mengual, Elena. Ayer y Hoy: 25 años del triunfo Del PSOE. El Mundo, 2007.
https://www.elmundo.es/especiales/2007/10/espana/25aniversario_triunfo_psoe/ayeryhoy
/02.html.

Meino, Elo Edado, and Roi H. Song. Tacing he Pa: An Inodcion. In Traces of
Contamination: Unearthing the Francoist Legacy in Contemporary Spanish Discourse,
11 26. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 2005.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Durham: Duke University
Press, 2011.

Montoliú, Pedro. Enciclopedia de Madrid. Barcelona: Planeta, 2002.

Moreiras Menor, Cristina. Cultura herida: literatura y cine en la España democrática. Madrid:
Ediciones Libertarias, 2002.

Morris, Barbara, and Kathleen M. Vernon. Post-Franco, Postmodern: The Films of Pedro
Almodovar. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995.

231

Mulvey, Laura. Visual and Other Pleasures. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. 34695th edition.
New York: NYU Press, 2009.

Muñoz-Rojas, Olivia. Ashes and Granite: Destruction and Reconstruction in the Spanish Civil
War and Its Aftermath. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2011.

Muro, Diego, and Gregorio Alonso, eds. The Politics and Memory of Democratic Transition:
The Spanish Model. 1 edition. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Nadal, Saa. Inodcion. In Alrededor de / Around, edited by Sara Nadal and Carles Puig.
Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2002.

Noa, Piee. Beeen Memo and Hio: Le Lie de Mmoie. Representations, no. 26
(Spring 1989): 7 24.

Noon, Diana. F oh Facim: Poiie Affec and he Aeheic of Whiene in Hola!
Made in USA. In Forms of New and Old Authoritarianism in Spain. Conference paper,
Modern Language Association. Seattle, Washington, 2020.

Ola, Laa. Conflico en el Edificio España: Último capítulo de la historia de un edificio
gafe. Eldiario.es, August 21, 2018.

Pedo Snche enncia a hace n meo de la memoia en el Valle de Lo Cado oa o
dejalo como cemeneio ciil. Europa Press, August 29, 2018.

Palad, Diana. Falling hogh he Cack: Anachiic Reiance and he Geneacin Pedida
in Jo ngel Maa Hioia Del Konen and Cae Sano Okada. Arizona
Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 17, no. 1 (2013): 81 100.
https://doi.org/10.1353/hcs.2013.0000.

Pe Melgoa, Adin. The Ehic of Obliion. In A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar, 176 99. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118325360.ch8.

Pérez Manzanares, Julio. Costus: You Are a Star: Court Painting in the Madrid of La Movida.
Cádiz: Editorial UCA, 2018.

Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London: Routledge, 2003.

Preston, Paul. The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century
Spain. 1 edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.

Poch, Rafael. Ladillo (Bick): Un vistazo francés al momento eaol. La Vanguardia,
October 19, 2017.

232

Raelli, Qenin. Le charme du ladrillo: Au coeur de la crise eagnole. Vacarme 63 (2013).
https://vacarme.org/article2245.html.

Reche, Elia. El veto del banco Santander me provocó mucho dolor y facin. El
Confidencial, March 18, 2014.

Resina, Joan Ramón. Sho of Memo: The Reclamaion of he Pa Since he Sanih
Taniion o Democac. In Disremembering the Dictatorship: The Reclamation of the
Past Since the Spanish Transition to Democracy, edited by Joan Ramón Resina, 83 125.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003.

. The Ghost in the Constitution: Historical Memory and Denial in Spanish Society.
Oxford University Press, 2017.

Richards, Michael. A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco’s
Spain, 1936-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

. After the Civil War: Making Memory and Re-Making Spain since 1936. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Richardson, Nathan. Constructing Spain: The Re-Imagination of Space and Place in Fiction and
Film, 1953-2003. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2012.

. The Deil in he Deail: Uban Sace and he Peience of he Saced in El Da de
La Beia. In Capital Inscriptions: Essays on Hispanic Literature, Film and Urban
Space, in Honor of Malcolm Alan Compitello, edited by Benjamin Fraser, 319 34.
Hispanic Monographs. Newark, Del: Juan de la Cuesta, 2012.

Ro Mane, Eeana de lo. La figacin eaola en la dcada de 1980: El eio
Co. Una leca imblica de eie Valle de Lo Cado (1980 -1987): La
iconogafa de lo eangelia, la ide, lo acngele Cio.". Laboratorio de
Arte 21 (2009 2008): 335 46.

. La figacin eaola en la dcada de 1980: El eio Co. Una leca
imblica de Valle de Lo Cado (1980 -1987): La iconogafa de la igen.
Laboratorio de Arte 18 (2005): 541 51.

Robbins, Jill. Crossing through Chueca: Lesbian Literary Culture in Queer Madrid.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Rodige Loe, Emmanel. La cidad global o la nea cenalidad de Madid. In Madrid:
¿la suma de todos? : globalizacin, territorio, desigualdad , Observatorio Metropolitano,
33 93. Madrid: Traficantes de sueños, 2008.

233
Ronell, Avital. Crack Wars: Literature, Addiction, Mania. Champaign: University of Illinois
Press, 2004.

Ross, Christopher J. Spain since 1812, London: Routledge, 2015.

Ruiz, Julius. Franco’s Justice: Repression in Madrid after the Spanish Civil War. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2005.

Sánchez Castrejón, Pedro. Todo sobre mi Madrid: un paseo por el Madrid de Almodóvar, desde
“Pepi, Luci, Bom...” hasta “Julieta,” Madrid: Ediciones La Libreria, 2017.

Schaefer, Claudia. Bored to Distraction Cinema of Excess in End-of-the-Century Mexico and
Spain. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.

Schleier, Merrill. Skyscraper Cinema: Architecture and Gender in American Film. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Sheean, Jaceline. Noalgic Maei alim: Cii and Memo in Mecede lae Mercado
de Futuros. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 52, no. 2 (2018): 327 349.

. A (Ne) Sece Han Eoe: The Poliical Legibili of Sain Hologam
Poe. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 19, no. 4 (2018): 465 480.

Sheiff, Gina. Fanco Mone: The Fana of Childhood in El laberinto del fauno and
Balada triste de trompeta. Confluencia 30, no. 2 (2015): 127 139.

Smith, Paul Julian. Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar. London: Verso, 2014.

. Laws of Desire: Questions of Homosexuality in Spanish Writing and Film. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992.

. The Moderns: Time, Space, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Spanish Culture. Oxford:
Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Snde, Jonahan. Abo Time: Sening he Cii in Nohoo El limo Veano. Journal of
Spanish Cultural Studies 15, no. 1 2 (2014): 221 237.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2014.931668.

Salding, Noman. Coniion a Con termonument: Federalism, Reconstruction, and the
Poblem of Collecie Memo. Columbia Law Review 103, no. 8 (2003): 1992 2051.

Stewart, Jules. Madrid: The History. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013.

Stoler, Ann Laura. Along the Archival Grain Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.

234
. Duress: Colonial Durabilities in Our Times. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

. Se Toad an Ecolog of Di -Regad. Lecture, University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, January 28, 2019.

Song, H. Rosi. Lost in Transition: Constructing Memory in Contemporary Spain. Oxford
University Press, 2016.

Song, H. Rosi, and William J. Nichol. Back o he Fe. In Toward a Cultural Archive of La
Movida: Back to the Future. Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013.
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/socal/detail.action?docID=1574433.

Sueiro, Daniel. La verdadera historia del Valle de los Caídos. Madrid: Sedmay Ediciones, 1977.

Saell, Hamilon M. J a Teado in he Rain? The Moida Madilea and Democaic
Identity Formation in the Capital, 1979 1986. Bulletin of Spanish Studies 86, no. 3
(May 1, 2009): 345 69. https://doi.org/10.1080/14753820902938001.

Thrift, Nigel. Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Tiana Toibio, Nia. A Pnk Called Pedo: La Moida in he Film of Pedo Almoda. In
Contemporary Spanish Cultural Studies, edited by Barry Jordan and Rikki Morgan-
Tamosunas, 264 82. London: Edward Arnold, n.d.

Tornero, José Manuel. Santa Cruz del Valle de Los Caídos. León: Editorial Everest, 2000.

Tranche, Rafael R, and Vicente Sánchez-Biosca. NO-DO: el tiempo y la memoria. Madrid:
Ministerio de Cultura: Cuadernos de la Filmoteca, 1993.

Val, Migel Alono de. Sanih Achiece 1939 -1958: Conini and Diei.
Architectural Association, School of Architecture 17 (1989).

Valis, Noël. The Culture of Cursilería: Bad Taste, Kitsch, and Class in Modern Spain. Durham:
Duke University Press, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822384281.

. Ciil Wa Gho Enombed: Leon of he Valle of he Fallen. In Teaching
Representations of the Spanish Civil War, edited by Noël Valis, 425 36. Modern
Language Association of America Options for Teaching. New York: Modern Language
Association of America, 2007.

Varderi, Alejandro. Severo Sarduy y Pedro Almódovar: del barroco al kitsch en la narrativa y el
cine postmodernos. Madrid: Pliegos, 1996.

Verdery, Katherine. The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and Postsocialist Change.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

235
Ve Monalbn, Manel. Cona Fanco ebamo mejo . El País. May 19, 1985, El País
Semanal.

Vertov, Dziga. Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Berkley: University of California Press,
1984.

Vilarós, Teresa M. Mono del desencanto. Una crítica cultural de la transición española, 1973-
1993. 1. ed edition. Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2002.

Wark, McKenzie. The Beach beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the
Situationist International. London: Verso, 2015.

Willi, Ande. The Sanih Hoo Film a Sbeie Te: Elo de La I gleia La semana
del asesino. In Horror International, edited by S.J. Schneider and T. Williams, 163 79.
Detriot: Wayne State University Press, 2005.

Willoquet-Maricondi, Paula. Pedro Almodóvar: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi,
2004.

Wojcik, Pamela Robertson. The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film and Popular
Culture, 1945 to 1975. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.

Wylie, John. Landscape. London: Routledge, 2008.

Yarza, Alejandro. The Making and Unmaking of Francoist Kitsch Cinema: From Raza to Pan’s
Labyrinth. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

Yates, Frances A. The Art of Memory. London: Bodley Head, 1966.

Zizek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times. London: Verso Books, 2011.

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Gastropoetics: Cultural figurations of eating in modern Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba

PDF

The veiled screen: uncanny crystallizations in the moving image

PDF

Magic and media: the critical concept of telepathy (1918-1939)

PDF

Anti-gritos: screaming as witnessing in postwar Central America

PDF

Witnessing silence: testimony, performance, and the poetics of the unspeakable

PDF

Seeing where there's nothing to see: French filmmakers and writers and everyday life in postwar social space

PDF

Riddles of representation in fantastic media

PDF

Special cultural zones: provincializing global media in neoliberal China

PDF

The Seoul of Los Angeles: contested identities and transnationalism in immigrant space

PDF

Studios before the system: architecture, technology, and early cinema

PDF

Radiant mushrooms of postwar Japanese media

PDF

Existential surplus: affect and labor in Asian diasporic video cultures

PDF

Animation before the war: nation, identity, and modernity in Japan from 1914-1945

PDF

Language, soundscape, and identity formation in Shanghai fangyan literature and culture

PDF

Choreographing the Sinophone body: martial movements and embodied languages in Hong Kong media

PDF

Emergent media technologies and the production of new urban spaces

PDF

Labors of love: Black women, cultural production, and the romance genre

PDF

Viral selves: Cellphones, selfies and the self-fashioning subject in contemporary India

PDF

Machines of the un/real: mapping the passage between the virtual and the material in the attraction

PDF

Sick cinema: illness, disability and the moving image

Asset Metadata

Creator Sheean, Jacqueline Beland (author)

Core Title Dictatorial duress: a cinematic mapping of Madrid from dictatorship to democracy

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture (Comparative Media and Culture)

Publication Date 07/14/2020

Defense Date 05/07/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Cinema,dictatorship,Francisco Franco,historical memory,Landscape,Madrid,OAI-PMH Harvest,psychogeography,spain

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Gutierrez-Albilla, Julian (committee chair), Graff-Zivin, Erin (committee member), Keller, Patricia (committee member), Lippit, Akira Mizuta (committee member)

Creator Email j.sheean@utah.edu,sheean@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-330023

Unique identifier UC11663652

Identifier etd-SheeanJacq-8675.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-330023 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-SheeanJacq-8675.pdf

Dmrecord 330023

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Sheean, Jacqueline Beland

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA