When the German public broadcaster ZDF produced the series The Hard Truth About the Franco Dictatorship in 2017 and Netflix planned it for 2021, many wondered why documentaries like this one were not produced in Spain. Some are done: the last one is an absolute minority RTVE production, it just aired on La 2 and is available on RTVE Play. It didn’t draw as much attention because it has a very neutral name: Spain, the 20th Century in Color. But it covers the history of this country from the 1930s to the 1970s in six chapters. In other words, it reviews the Franco regime from its precedents (the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera) to the abolition of the regime in transition.
The archive images from public service television, from No-Do and from the film library have been carefully selected and colorized, as is usual in the documentary genre today: in reality it is not necessary to the story, but it is more attractive and can serve To catch the zapper They protest the past wasn’t black and white. And neither does the screenplay: nuances abound. They do not shrink from the atrocities of Francoism during the civil war, in the cruel post-war period, and even in the decades of tentative opening that followed. But this series is right when it doesn’t focus on the dictator and his clique: there is a sociological nostalgia for the Spaniards. This distinguishes it from the German documentary, which focuses heavily on the character of the warlord.
The series briefly goes through the first decades of the 20th century and that’s where the color scheme shines the most, applied to the first street shoots in Spain. That since the loss of its colonies it has been a country in therapy, with masses in misery and illiteracy, with a dysfunctional political class. Here’s a quick run through some relevant political episodes: for every minute dedicated to Alfonso XIII and his unpredictable rule, there are several dedicated to the (bad) lives of people at the time. The illusion created by the Second Republic and the advance in liberties it brought is perceived, but it is not idealized and its vulnerabilities are clear; later the civil war is told mainly from the point of view of the civilian population, in episodes such as Gernika or the brutal attack on the Desbandá fleeing Málaga. Heavy repression followed, the humiliation of the vanquished, suffocating self-sufficiency, and the implementation of the national-Catholic ideology. The focus is well placed on the role of the Catholic Church in the regime whose oppression it blesses; This was a peculiarity of Spanish fascism. This takes a while because the papacy of Paul VI. implying a distance between the Vatican and El Pardo; Then some supporters of reconciliation will reach out to the parishes closest to the city and dioceses.
Well told is the turn of the regime in the second half of the 1950s, when Eisenhower moved through here, Ava Gadner settled down and the Falangists were replaced by Opus technocrats. The Spaniards loved cinema, which was a window on the world, a great relief in the worst years of oppression despite the efforts of censorship; The mandatory synchronization was the (often ridiculous) way to be able to change the scripts. Television (very good television was made in the 1960s) and opening up to tourism progressed as mores changed. Of course, the desire to attract foreign travelers led to excessive urban development, which made almost the entire coast ugly. Even before the dictator’s death, the independent press emerged, books that would previously have been banned and disclosure appeared, but by the end of 1975 opponents were being persecuted and tortured and death sentences signed. The documentary also takes a look at the cultural life of the period, from Concha Piquer to Raimon, through Manolete and the lackluster Beatles concert at Las Ventas; and in sport, with the launch of football as a mass spectacle, Di Stefano’s European Championships in Madrid or the Urtain phenomenon.
A large family with their Seat 600, in an image from the documentary “Spain, 20th Century in Color”, RTVE
The desire to focus on the people is evident, to a greater extent on those who don’t fit the official story. With special attention to women deprived of their rights after the fall of the Republic and those who want to corset themselves into the roles of submissive wives, committed mothers and housewives; unable to get their passport or to work without their husband’s permission (which is happening today in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia and appalls us). The same Spanish women broke down the doors of universities and workplaces, they left parties and put on their bikinis (and many agreed to the pill or traveled to London to have an abortion). When the dictator dies, feminism is already a social force to be reckoned with, with many battles to fight.
The series also looks at the working class, knowing misery and development, coming to Access 600 and starring in the strikes that were the greatest expression of civil resistance at the end of the dictatorship. Check out the neighborhoods being claimed by neighborhood movements and the countryside rebelling against exploitation and abandonment. Look at the exiles, look at the emigrants. And he looks a lot at the youth, which also includes the children of the victors of the war, who no longer identify with the values of their elders. Even before the riots of 1968, the universities became a hotbed of conflict or a space of freedom.
In short, we see that society has always been ahead. Franco died in bed, yes, but Spain wasn’t, never had been, as he saw it.
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