Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

Muchachas de Bagdad, Los Amantes del desierto...), Florián Rey’s film is
the only one set in a Protectorate of Morocco that, in spite of
everything, appears to be more or less real. And thus, although
initially the film looks to be simply a troubled love story, La Canción
de Aixa also serves as an idyllic showcase for the tutelary gaze by
Spain over its possessions and consistently satisfies the basic demand
of the colonial cinema, that is, to familiarise the metropolis with an
idealised image of the Empire.
Nevertheless, the end of the Civil War closed this extremely
interesting parenthesis in Spain’s colonial cinema, unaccountably
overlooked and even forgotten by historians (probably due to the fact
that these two films were actually not circulated until very recently).
Naturally, this is not the result of a waning interest on a part of the
Franco regime in its Africa-oriented vocation during the immediate
post-war period – as is evident from the occupation of Tangiers in
June 1940 – but rather simply stems from the fact that the exaltation
of the centuries-long Hispano-Moroccan spiritual brotherhood gave
way to a much more direct and limited militaristic discourse. Rosa de
Africa (1941), a medium-length film by José López Rubio left no
room for doubt and prefigured the tone of the better-known ¡Harka!
(Carlos Arévalo, 1941). Little by little Africa became the privileged
scenario of military glory, offering a less problematic setting than the
Civil War and extending, de facto, the civilising effort of Spain on a
purely military keynote. The rhetoric of the Hispano-Moroccan
brotherhood subsisted, of course, but in a more artificial and barely
convincing manner: in practice, the Moors became obscure extras
who relinquished their leading roles to the legionnaires who barely
even deigned to address them to give them orders. For the most part,
the Spanish films set in Africa in the forties were thus characterised
by portraying an unreal image of the Protectorate in which no natives
appeared to even exist.
¡Harka! is an extremely interesting film from
this perspective. Although its plot is
basically circumscribed to the portrayal of a
number of war exploits, somewhat out-ofcontext,
in a number of scenes Arévalo’s
film explores the theme of the Llamada de
Africa (call of Africa) so characteristic in
Spanish colonial cinema. Although Captain
Valcázar (role played by Alfredo Mayo) is
the character who was seen to embody the
prototype of the military hero in North
Africa in virtue of the perfect adaptation of
the role to the medium, even a very
superficial analysis of ¡Harka! reveals how much of a sentiment
of self-defence (and self-punishment) lies in that attitude. On
the contrary, Lieutenant Herrera (role played by Luis Peña) is
the character who truly appears to feel in some way united in spirit
33 Journal of Film Preservation / 63 / 2001
Shooting of Romancero Marroquí, Carlos Velo, Enrique
Dominguez Rodiño (1939). Operator: Cecilio Paniagua.
Courtesy of the Filmoteca Española, Madrid