The Disenchantment
Jaime Chávarri. Spain, 1976. 96′
The widow and three children of a Francoist poet tell their stories with joyful, maddening frankness: namely, how to tear apart the fascist patriarchy.
On the screen, as the film’s l3 protagonists begin to conjure up the past, a tale of ruthless family relationships emerges, a mix of unusual erudition, devastating cynicism and profound cruelty. The “respectable” bourgeois, Falangist family, its values and its “father figure” crumble under the director’s gaze. The film became a cult symbol of the fall of the Franco regime and the new democracy, which in its first months was already showing the cracks of disappointment.
Jaime Chávarri (b. 1943) was a key director of the transition period to democracy: his irony, humor, and eclecticism (musicals, comedies, melodramas, and even a porn film), belied his intellectual and creative depth. He was also a beloved pedagogue to his students and students.