Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF
Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF
Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF
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Le cinéma colonial espagnol n’a pas suscité<br />
jusqu’à présent l’intérêt que sans doute il<br />
méritait, subsistant ainsi un étrange vide<br />
dans l’historiographie de ce genre d’étude au<br />
niveau international. La production<br />
cinématographique espagnole comporte,<br />
cependant, un grand nombre de films qui<br />
peuvent être classés dans chacun des sousgenres<br />
d’inspiration colonialiste habituels et<br />
même parmi des sous-genres du crû tels que<br />
le cinéma des missionnaires. En tout cas, et<br />
comme ailleurs, en Espagne le cinéma<br />
colonial a aussi servi d’alibi aux exaltations<br />
militaristes et, dans une moindre mesure, à<br />
mettre en valeur sa mission civilisatrice, du<br />
moins jusqu’à l’indépendance du Maroc qui<br />
était devenu le grand réduit du petit et<br />
anachronique empire espagnol du XXème<br />
Siècle. Celle-là mit fin de manière abrupte à<br />
l’intérêt qu’avaient les cinéastes pour de tels<br />
sujets et pour les décors exotiques<br />
d’autrefois, pour donner lieu à l’utilisation<br />
du pays comme décor pour des films à petit<br />
budget. La pression idéologique exercée par<br />
l’africanisme franquiste mit un frein à cette<br />
tendance et la production espagnole finira<br />
par <strong>of</strong>frir des titres atypiques tels que<br />
Romancero marroquí, La canción de Aixa<br />
ou La llamada de Africa, sans compter de<br />
l’abondante œuvre documentaire qui attend<br />
toujours des mesures urgentes de sauvegarde<br />
ainsi que l’écriture du chapitre qu’elle<br />
occupe dans l’histoire du cinéma colonial<br />
Européen.<br />
Misión blanca, Juan de Orduña (1946). The school at the<br />
mission. Courtesy <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Film</strong>oteca Española, Madrid<br />
unfeasible in the Protectorate <strong>of</strong> Morocco, unequivocally the great<br />
magnet for Spain’s colonial film production – were nevertheless<br />
brought to fruition in other latitudes. For this purpose, the Spanish<br />
filmmakers did not hesitate – and this is certainly significant – to<br />
transcend the scope <strong>of</strong> the nation’s own colonies in order to exalt the<br />
work <strong>of</strong> the Catholic missionaries (not necessarily Spanish, although<br />
this was the usual case) in spreading the Faith in Africa south <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Sahara, with Cristo negro (Ramón Torrado, 1962) and Encrucijada<br />
para una monja (Julio Buchs, 1967), India, in La Mies es mucha (José<br />
Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1948) and Sor Intrépida (Rafael Gil, 1952),<br />
Indochina, in Una Cruz en el infierno (José María Elorrieta, 1954) and<br />
Cao Xa (Pedro Mario Herrero, 1971), set in the Vietnam war. This<br />
derivation <strong>of</strong> the colonial cinema towards a religious genre in which<br />
the civilising mission is understood almost exclusively as a<br />
missionary work (not exempt, needless to say, from echoes in films as<br />
strongly military as Los Últimos de Filipinas) awaits a detailed study <strong>of</strong><br />
what this subgenre embodied as a symptom in the context <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Spanish cinema in the Franco era.<br />
With respect to the colonies in America, and excluding the<br />
productions centred on the imperial period (which would be more<br />
appropriately classified as historical cinema tout court, despite the fact<br />
that their ideological utilisation did not fail to lend them an<br />
unequivocal contemporary resonance), solely El Héroe de Cascorro<br />
(Emilio Bautista, 1929) and Héroes del 95 (Raúl Alfonso, 1947)<br />
illustrated with vigour the heroism <strong>of</strong> the Spanish army in Cuba. Las<br />
Últimas banderas (Luis Marquina, 1954) did the same with the siege<br />
<strong>of</strong> El Callao in 1825 and the loss <strong>of</strong> Peru: although this latter event<br />
concerns a much earlier episode in chronological terms, the fact <strong>of</strong> its<br />
being a virtual remake <strong>of</strong> Los Últimos de Filipinas means it must<br />
necessarily be considered in this context. Naturally, the references to<br />
the possessions in America reappear episodically<br />
in other Spanish films, but generally without<br />
amounting to more than a mere backdrop for the<br />
real story, as is the case with La Guerra empieza<br />
en Cuba (Manuel Mur Oti, 1957) and El<br />
Emigrante (Sebastián de Almeida, 1959). A most<br />
interesting exception is the overture <strong>of</strong> Salto a la<br />
gloria (León Klimowsky, 1957), a well-executed<br />
biography <strong>of</strong> Ramón y Cajal that commences<br />
precisely by showing the scientist during his<br />
military service in Cuba, falling prey to malaria...<br />
and thus indirectly illustrating – but with great<br />
skill – the widely-extended thesis that the defeat<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Spanish army on the island was due more<br />
to the disease <strong>of</strong> epidemic proportions than to<br />
setbacks on the battlefield. As to the rest, Cuba provided the setting<br />
for sentimental melodramas such as Bambú (José Luis Sáenz de<br />
Heredia, 1945) or Habanera (José María Elorrieta, 1959), though in<br />
30 <strong>Journal</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Film</strong> <strong>Preservation</strong> / 63 / 2001