Set in 1580 Seville, Spaniard Alberto Rodríguez’s 2017 series “The Plague,” a landmark in Spanish television history, depicts how Spain took a turn for the worse.
Inspired by the non-fiction book by Javier Cercas, starring Alvaro Morte (“Money Heist”) and acclaimed at the world premiere in San Sebastián in September, Rodríguez’s “Anatomy of a Moment” tells the story of how, between 1976 and 1981, Spain finally succeeded, and how its young, hard-won democracy hung by a thread.
A “portrait of power and freedom, or at least how to maintain freedom for the future,” says Rodríguez (“Prison 77”). Variety, The high-stakes thriller begins with the titular “moment”: a group of some 200 civil guards burst into the Spanish Congress, led by pistol-wielding Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero, who spray the semicircle with bullets. Most members of Congress unceremoniously rush to hide behind their benches. But three figures – and the scene was broadcast live on national television – are sitting upright in their seats, symbolically refusing to bow to the coup, convinced that they are going to die anyway: the outgoing Spanish Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez, Santiago Carrillo, head of the Spanish Communist Party, and the head of the armed forces Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, who, although frail, close to 70, has been for order the rebel guards to lay down their weapons.
The series then devotes one episode per piece to the three: Ep. 1, how Suárez, Spanish Prime Minister from July 1976, persuaded Franco’s parliament to eliminate itself; how Santiago Carrillo, leader of the Spanish Communist Party, returns to Spain and obtains its legalization, and Gutiérrez Mellado’s battle to modernize the army, eliminating its most radical elements. “These are figures,” says Rodríguez, of “Shakesperian stature.” The series depicts them in their greatness, their contradictions, their traumas, their chain smoking and their betrayal towards the castes from which they come.
It’s the story of three traitors. Suárez went against his proclaimed loyalty to the principles of the national movement, Franco’s political system; Carrillo turned his back on the guiding principles of the Spanish Communist Party; Gutiérrez Mellado betrayed his fellow Francoist officers with whom he had fought for Franco during the Spanish Civil War and who intended, 40 years later, to preserve a Francoist world order. A final episode returns to the coup d’état, the reasons for its failure and the court martial that followed against its leaders.
A fiction series, “The Anatomy of a Moment” is shot brilliantly, thanks to its use of ellipsis – in Ep. 1, to depict Súarez’s spectacular rise in the Francoist ranks, as a young Phalangist Suárez guides a general into the office of the governor of Segovia: cuts inside, where Suárez, now installed as governor himself, receives another general – and accompanied by a sharp voiceover, mainly written by scribes Rafael Cobos and Fran Araújo, explaining the intricacies of the characters and historical events. crossing lines. “Your friend has only one political ideal: to prosper,” Alfonso Armada, head of the royal household, told King Juan Carlos when he named Suárez prime minister. “And he was absolutely right,” the voiceover says.
Each episode channels a sense of the genre: a political comedy in which Suárez buys Franco’s parliament, treating its members to everything that resembles a family cruise; spy intrigue as Carrillo enters Spain incognito; court drama in the last, tinged with a note of melancholic elegy, because Súarez is forgotten and, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, forgets who he himself was.
Variety spoke with Rodríguez in San Sebastián where “The Anatomy of a Moment” celebrated its world premiere, acclaimed by El Mundo as “magnetic” and by El Correo as “the series of the year.”
“Marshland,” your best film at the Goyas, is set in 1980, during Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy from 1975 to 1982. Why go back to that time?
Domingo Corral and José Manuel Lorenzo said: “Read Javier Cercas’ book, then let’s talk about it. » I did and found it fascinating. First, it rearranges reality, creating what could be considered fantasy fiction. There is the gut-wrenching ending, which talks about forgetting, about how everything disappears, including our referents. The story ends up being forgotten. In his prologue, Cercas cites a poll in the United Kingdom that found a significant percentage of people thought Churchill did not exist, that he was a fictional figure.
Also, the book, like your series, is structured around three characters while the essence of the television series, its greatest attraction in bringing viewers back for a second season, is its characters.
Yes, the three Suárez, Carrillo and Gutiérrez-Mellado were extraordinary characters, with pronounced dramatic arcs, very complex characters. Suárez was several things at once, Carrillo too. They were extremely friendly, especially around them. These are characters of Shakespearean stature.
One of the key scenes in the series is when Suárez organizes a first clandestine meeting with Carrillo, upon his return to Spain. Against all expectations, they gel immediately…
There is a moment when Suárez says to Carrillo: “Don Santiago, you and I are the only real politicians in this country. Everyone feels the weakness of others: their ego. They are multi-faceted characters, with many layers, faces.
Another thing that stands out in the series is its voiceover, which can be very ironic or poetic and also draw lines from the present and the future.…
Maybe 15% is from Javier Cercas’ book. The rest comes from Rafa [Rafael Cobos] and Fran [Araújo]. It attempts to clarify the broad outlines of the story. The book is 500 pages. It was necessary to condense a lot.
You get extraordinary performances from the actors, especially perhaps from “Money Heist”’s Alvaro Morte as Suárez. The first time Álvaro put on the nasal prosthesis, it was as if he was a different person. He studied a lot of videos and other references. And Suárez was elegant. He put on a suit and looked elegant in every situation. Álvaro also has this elegance.
What if you had to say what the series is about?
It’s a portrait of power and freedom, or at least how to maintain freedom for the future.
