I've been watching Pere Portabella on Mubi. Not well known here but important film maker from Spain.
He made this documentary near the end of the Franco regime. Franco had died and the country was moving to some form of democracy. Talks with leading political figures from monarchists to communists. Between this an actor gives a short history of Francoism.
Spain at the time was in process of change and nothing had been decided. So the film is documenting history as its made. All the more powerful for that.
It can also be seen as not purely about Spain. Its a discussion of what is democracy. Everything from direct democracy, dictatorship of the proletariat to representative democracy. Also for Spain whether centrised state or federal state is best. The issues of nationalities come up a lot. He interviews ETA and Catalan nationalists.
For Spain the Civil War was traumatic. One bit of film he has two exiles talk of returning to Spain.
My partner says in Spain when Franco died half the country celebrated the other half thought about getting there money out of the country.
One of the themes in the film was the possibility of Francoism without Franco. A danger that some reforms with limited democracy would happen.
The film has a young Felipe Gonzalez of the PSOE. Who would be major figure in the new Spain. The PSOE would run Spain for many years.
Its difficult for people here to imagine what a big social and cultural change this was.
Shot in the months after the death of Franco, Informe general is a “documentary” shot with the techniques of a fiction film—exploring the limits of film representations. The speakers are concerned with one question: How do you go from a dictatorship to a democracy?
mubi.com
