Teaching Representations of Resistance and Repression in Popular Spanish Film

This essay presents a brief analysis of three popular Spanish films released between 2001 and 2012 that are set in the immediate post Civil War period and first decades of the Franco dictatorship. Specifically, it considers three films which aim to reconstruct and represent the experience of the men, women, and children who fought Francoism or who endured repression after the end of the Spanish Civil War: Silencio roto (Armendáriz 2001), El laberinto del fauno (Del Toro 2004), and 30 años de oscuridad (Martín 2012). This essay explores the way in which tropes of politics, history, resistance, and repression are represented in each film, and how filmmakers using popular cinematic forms have appropriated the Spanish Civil War and Franco period settings to comment on contemporary political and social issues in Spain. Most of the recent Spanish cinematic productions (fictional and • https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/peripherica.1.2.8 164 Periphe–rica • A Journal of Social, Cultural, and Literary History documentary) that depict the Spanish Civil War and Franco period have focused on the moral vindication of the vanquished. The three films considered here aim to reconstruct the particular experience or memories of the Spanish maquis and topos, and the civilians who supported them in their struggles. Each of the films discussed has sought to play a role in the recasting of collective identity in Spain, and affords important insights into the social processes and experiences of the time in which they were created. In a world where the visual immediacy of cinematic images increasingly works to displace traditional historiography, these representations have become ever more important and merit discussion. This essay takes into account that these cinematic representations are subjective and mediated depictions of events, participants, and circumstances of the Civil War and Franco period, and suggests pedagogical approaches to discussing each film in order to enable students (and other viewers) to grasp how to distinguish between history and the historicizing effect of its representations.

La mayoría de las últimas producciones cinematográficas españolas (ficción y documental) que retratan la Guerra Civil española y el período franquista se han centrado en la reivindicación moral de los vencidos. Las tres películas aquí consideradas tienen como objetivo común reconstruir la experiencia o los recuerdos particulares de los maquis y topos españoles, y de los civiles que los apoyaron en sus luchas. Cada una de las películas comentadas ha buscado desempeñar la refundición de la identidad colectiva en España y aporta importantes conocimientos sobre los procesos sociales y las experiencias de la época en que fueron creadas. En un mundo donde la inmediatez visual de las imágenes cinematográficas trabaja cada vez más para desplazar a la historiografía tradicional, estas representaciones se han vuelto cada vez más importantes y merecen discusión. Este ensayo toma en cuenta que estas representaciones cinematográficas son representaciones subjetivas y mediadas de eventos, participantes y circunstancias de la Guerra Civil y el período de Franco, y sugiere enfoques pedagógicos para discutir cada película a fin de que los estudiantes (y otros espectadores) comprendan cómo distinguir entre la historia y el efecto historizante de sus representaciones. Silencio roto (Armendáriz 2001), El laberinto del fauno (del Toro 2006), and 30 años de oscuridad (Martín 2012). In a seminar course designed to introduce undergraduate or graduate students to filmic, literary, and cultural analysis about contemporary Spain, a study of these films prompts development of knowledge about the historical periods they represent, and an understanding • Mombell of the legacies of the Spanish Civil War and Francoism. An examination of how tropes of politics, history, resistance, and repression are represented in each film affords insights into the social processes of the time in which they were created, and develops students' critical thinking about how filmmakers using popular cinematic forms have appropriated the Spanish Civil War and Franco period settings to comment on contemporary political and social issues in Spain, which students can also connect to themes of authoritarianism, human rights abuses, and anti-fascist/anti-totalitarian resistances in a variety of nations and time periods.
The relation of Francoism and Spain's Francoist legacy to Spanish popular culture is a complex one. Remembering and forgetting war and its aftermath is not an object of disinterested inquiry, but a burning issue at the very core of conflicts over forms of organizing the state, social relations, and subjectivity. Films employ narrative strategies that allow audiences to experience social or political tensions, and are particularly powerful in their function as active transmitters of images and imaginings about the past. Richard Sperber posits the instability of public memory anchored in visual representation and argues for the power of the visual image to "infect and affect" written history. This essay considers that cinematic representations are subjective and mediated depictions of events, participants, and circumstances of the Civil War and Franco period. It builds upon Marianne Hirsch's thoughtful discussion of the role of images in the generational transfer of memory, examines the role of the cinema as a repository of memory and experience, and suggests pedagogical approaches to each film to enable students (and other viewers) to grasp how to distinguish between history and the historicizing effect of its representations. Silencio roto is set in the year 1944 and it depicts the postwar conditions of a rural village in Northern Spain. The film tells a love story between Manuel, a young blacksmith who flees into the mountains to join his father in the guerrilla resistance, and Lucía, a young woman who arrives from the city to live with her Aunt Teresa in order to alleviate the domestic burden from her Republican war-widowed mother. Though the menacing presence of the Guardia Civil is evident from the moment of Lucía's arrival in the town, there is still a strong sense of hope and conviction of cause among the maquis and their supporters.

Silencio roto
The Franco regime was highly invested in separating the maquis from the political nature of their resistance in order to discredit and vilify them as domestic terrorists. In its representation of the maquis, Silencio roto also distances them from a fervent political militancy, but to a different end in order to turn the historical Francoist narrative about the maquis on its head and change public perceptions about this group. For example, in the film it is the Guardia Civil who wantonly menace and terrorize the townspeople, not the maquis. In an undergraduate seminar course, classroom discussion of the film might consider how the guerrilla's composition of a diverse group of men functions to underscore their shared interests and shared need against common Francoist threat: some, like Manuel's father, Matías, were Republican soldiers motivated by a militant communist political agenda who stayed in Spain to resist the dictatorship and await aid from the western Allies; others, like Manuel, were not soldiers during the Spanish Civil War, but come from highly political families and flee to the mountains; all arm themselves defensively in fear for their lives.
Lucía becomes involved in the clandestine resistance as a civilian enlace, delivering food and news to the men hiding in the mountains, not because of any ideological conviction (in fact, she is quite ignorant of the entire resistance movement or any political motivation when she first arrives), but rather because she has fallen in love with Manuel. While the love story and the political story within Silencio roto are not by necessity mutually exclusive, the film does go from emotional to political in ways that intertwine and conflate politics with emotions. Students can be guided to think about how framing the story of the guerrilla resistance within a love story between two very good-looking young people may arouse spectator identification at the same time that it disrupts an explicitly political message. Class discussion might focus on how the film flattens the complexities of the political history behind the resistance movement, highlighting the creation of sympathies through the humanity and romantic appeal of the characters, thus inviting the spectator to root for the underdogs, and, by proxy, with their general antifascist political cause.
One possible approach to Silencio roto is to focus on how various cinematic techniques communicate the psychological terror of the regime's repression. For starters, Armendáriz's visual technique makes the Civil Guard's costuming-full military dress, long black capes, handguns, and the tricornio hat-ominous and threatening. Perhaps most striking is Armendáriz's recourse to audio cues to reinforce the presence of the Civil Guard: either suspenseful music (original score by Pascal Gaigne) or a fearful silence accompanies their presence throughout the film. These audio-visual cues reinforce the dynamic of fear and intentionally exacerbate the sensation of stress or uncertainty experienced by the maquis and their supporters.
Silencio roto abstains from elaborating an explicitly political anti-Francoist discourse. Students may consider how opposition to the dictator is not presented within a categorical political argument, but rather as a human reaction against the abuses perpetrated by supporters of the regime. In the film, the Caudillo is an abstract figure. The immediate enemy of the maquis and their sympathizers is the Guardia Civil, who use fear and a masculine fascist • Mombell performativity as a psychological weapon to terrorize and control the public.
Another topic to explore is how this film focuses on the complex social relationships in the small rural community during the immediate postwar period, particularly on the plight and condition of women. As the film narrative progresses, almost all men with Republican sympathies flee to the mountains to join the maquis. Women are left to suffer and endure interrogational torture, public humiliations, and the general threat of the Guardia Civil who try to extract from them information about their husbands and sons hiding in the mountains. As the episodes of brutality and repression increase, these women become the ultimate victims of the men's war, and as the years pass, few are able to preserve their hope in the cause.
Instructors who choose Silencio roto might draw students' attention to the final scene of the film. In this sequence, Armendáriz signals that, in spite of women's victimization, women are the ones who keep alive the positive memory and the legacy of the Republican resistance. Lucía is on a bus leaving the village to return to the city. As she looks out the window of the bus and out onto the mountain-scape, the clouds in the sky open to let through a ray of sunlight and a rainbow. A quotation by German poet, playwright, and life-long committed Marxist, Bertolt Brecht appears on the screen: "En los tiempos sombríos ¿se cantará también? También se cantará sobre los tiempos sombríos" (1:44:10). With this, Armendáriz implies that Lucía will one day tell her daughter about her father, Manuel, and grandfather, Matías, who fought to defend Spain and their Republican ideals. In current discussions and politics of memory in Spain, Lucía represents ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances who survived the Spanish Civil War and Franco regime and who will give testimony to their experience after the death of Franco. Like the stories about life, death, struggle, and intractable hope that Lucia will tell her daughter, Armendáriz imagines oral testimonies as the primary voice that will shape cultural memory about the Spanish Civil War and the aftermath of that struggle. In spite of the maquis' failure to restore Republican Spain, the film ends with an allusion to their heroism and works to commemorate their antifascist legacy.

El laberinto del fauno
Part of the cultural project undertaken by Silencio roto is to contest the previous Francoist criminalization of the maquis by depicting them as victims. Instructors may ask students to examine the function of metaphor throughout del Toro's film and its role in a narrative strategy that suggests a (re)mythologized version of Spain's historical past. A particular example is how del Toro effectively constructs a fantasy world set in a historical moment in order to portray the struggle to return to idyllic origins-a promised future in which the princess will be reunited with her father and the world will be restored to its true and perfect balance. The initial sequence of the film uses a mythical-narrative structure to inscribe the story within a cyclical time sequence concerned with the return to origins, and the film juxtaposes the "real" world with the fantastical world of the Faun. Audiences should examine and discuss the princess described in the opening sequence as a metaphor for the Second represent the pain of Republican defeat and the subsequent Francoist erasure of the Republican past. 2 Furthermore, that the princess would emerge from a secret underground paradise is an overt allusion to the clandestine guerrilla resistance as well as to the dormant (but enduring) Republican hopes that, one day, the Spain that was lost will once again be restored.
The protagonist of El laberinto is Ofelia, a young girl who is already orphaned at the beginning of the film-her Republican father was killed in the Civil War. She goes to live with her mother and new stepfather, Captain Vidal, at the military outpost where the Captain is the leader of Nationalist efforts to defeat the guerrilla resistance active in the surrounding mountains.
Like Lewis Carroll's Alice, who escapes reality in a "wonderland" at the bottom of a rabbit hole, del Toro's Ofelia enters the labyrinth and engages in a fantasy world to escape the harsh realities she encounters (del Toro, Guión 255, 266, 269-70). There, she meets a faun who sets her on a journey to complete three tasks so that she can reclaim her true identity as the Princess Moana. While not so innocent as a child's fantasy, national myth seeks harmony beyond a culture at war with itself. Ofelia's struggle to protect her baby brother and quest to recover her true identity as the Princess Moana to restore peace and order to her reality represent Spain's ongoing battle over cultural reconciliation and search for a new collective identity in order to ensure a more stable future. Ofelia's first task is to remove a key from the belly of a giant toad that lives under a fig tree in the forest. The toad has destroyed the tree, sucking all life from its roots, but according to the instructions that Ofelia receives, once the toad is removed the tree will begin to bloom again ("volverá a florecer").
Ofelia climbs down deep into the root system under the tree to confront the toad. In this sequence, invite students to observe and comment how the tree may be understood as a metaphor for Spain and the toad a metaphor for Franco. In order for the tree to regain its health and flower once again, the toad must be removed from underneath its roots. Likewise, the first step in redeeming Spain's true, democratic form is the removal of the dictator, and, by extension, the Francoist legacy, from Spanish politics and society.
Other allusions are made in the film to the illegitimacy of Franco's claim to Spanish government and history in order to construct an alternate to the Francoist historical narrative. For example, Ofelia repeatedly denies the Captain's claim to paternity. When the Captain and her mother insist that she call him "father," Ofelia vehemently refuses and reminds them that her real father died in the war. As in Silencio roto, a character acting as Francisco forced to hand over the child to Mercedes, his housekeeper whose brother, Pedro, is the leader of the maquis. In the final exchange before they kill him, Captain Vidal begins to instruct Mercedes and the maquis to "Dile a mi hijo… dile a qué hora murió su padre. Dile que yo…" and is abruptly interrupted by Mercedes who tells him "No. Ni siquiera sabrá su nombre." The end of El laberinto makes us ask "What if?" What if the guerrilla resistance had triumphed in their efforts to restore the Republic? What would be the legacy of Spain if Franco had not won the war? It was the intention of the regime to extinguish the resistance in Spain-both physically and in Spanish historical memory. By declaring that the Captain's infant son will never know his father's identity, El laberinto effectively declares its intention to snuff out any memory of the Francoist legacy in Spain. The denial of Captain Vidal's last request and the handing over of the child to the maquis suggest a re-writing of history, that the new generation will learn an alternate telling of the pastone which would relegate to the realm of silencio and olvido the Francoist legacy and redeem that of the Republicans. Thus, by representing the maquis as virtuous and triumphant in their resistance, El laberinto subverts the mythic and heroic ordering of Spain's history offered by the regime, and indulges the temptation to tell history as a viewer sympathetic to the Republican cause might wish it to have been.

años de oscuridad
When the Spanish Civil War ended and the borders were closed, some Spaniards were forced to go into hiding to escape repression. These so-called topos to come out of hiding, he feels that he is serving a life sentence with madness, blindness, or death (suicide) as his only options. The experience of living in hiding for so long has a dehumanizing effect on Cortés and others like him-in the film the topos describe themselves as zombies, physically alive but morally dead. Fear ("miedo enredado") becomes inseparable from the identity of the topos and of their families who suffered to protect their secret. Students may analyze how the questions the film raises about the psychological toll that fear has on a person after so many years relate to the lasting impacts of fear and repression on Spanish society during and after the Franco regime.
In 30 años, the treatment of the repressed should be seen as part of a recent trend in Spanish cinematic productions to focus on the moral vindication of the vanquished. In this regard, ask students to consider how the trope of fear circumscribes the historical representation of the topos? We have seen how Silencio roto and El laberinto purport to contest Francoist historiography by tending toward a positive or heroic depiction of Republican resistance.
In contrast, 30 años, though it does stand to criticize the injustice of Spain's past and highlights the suffering endured by a part of the Spanish population, does not regard the topos as heroes of Spanish history in any way. In fact, Martín argues that the topos cannot be called heroes because their lives were dominated by fear. Their victimhood is absolute. For Martín and the historians he interviewed, the topos are the greatest victims of the whole national tragedy.
However, by shedding light on this obscure and little-known phenomenon that spanned the dictatorship and the transition, 30 años offers a redress to this victimization. The documentary recovers the previously excluded history of the topos and inserts it into the cultural discourse on human suffering and consequences of the Spanish Civil War and Franco's dictatorship. Thus, by working to restore moral, political, and legal personhood to the topos, the film offers catharsis to those who lived this experience or who aided them.
It also stands as a reminder of what or whom else we may be excluding from Spanish historical memory and politics, and pushes the viewer to interrogate the historical record for other erasures in order to consider a new collective identity in Spain.

Conclusion
Given the power of the medium, students must learn to analyze the relation between film and society. Film influences the ways we imagine the past and project to the future. By representing the past through narrative strategies that allow audiences to experience and reimagine social and political tensions, Silencio roto, El laberinto, and 30 años each play a role in the recasting of collective identity in Spain. In del Toro's El laberinto, fantasy and historical contexts, which should be oppositional, instead become labyrinthine as the lines between history and fiction are blurred. During the dictatorship and Transition, Spanish citizens had to negotiate a labyrinth of silence. Today, Spaniards are negotiating a labyrinth of memory. As they confront their country's fratricidal past, they must decide where to enter, which path to choose in the narration of the past and creation of history, and who will emerge (and how) from the labyrinth.
It is impossible to know fully how the three films considered in this essay might seep into the consciousness of the nation or into the attitudes and knowledge of future audiences. However, when considering Spain's evolving relationship with the historical memory of the Civil War and its Francoist past, these films that portray resistance and repression can teach us about how contemporary filmmakers have reacted to the historical period and recreated it. While it is true that these films share some techniques and interests in their portrayal of resistance and repression, connecting those artistic and rhetorical choices to the considerations and politics of memory at their moment of creation would be most informative and pedagogical. It helps us to see how artistic works, even those attending to historical matters, are nonetheless subject to the circumstantial exigencies of their present. Students, and other viewers, should analyze what these films tell us about how filmmakers select or rework national symbols and stories to construct aesthetic versions of the national past, and provide motive for future political action and a renewed cultural identity.