On the surface, a landscape of paradise: the water shimmers with the changing light of the day, and the reeds swaying caressed by the wind; in the background, all is mud-a metaphor for the moral degradation of the society. Is the wetland of Albufera of Valencia become the scene of some of the films dealing with political corruption, or develop a plot facinerosa and, in addition, benefit from its great visual appeal. The latest release has been the film the silence of The swamp, directed by Marc Vigil, currently in vogue, a thriller that, inscribed in the tradition of film noir, puts the focus on the corruption of the ruling class, and set the criminal action in a city, whose name is associated with many political scandals of the recent past.
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Mud in the Lagoon. Critical of ‘the silence of The swamp’. The virtue and the sump. Criticism of ‘The desentierro’
two years Ago, was screened in the cinemas, The desentierro, Nacho Ruipérez, in that the reclassification of lands, and the murky waters of the Lagoon play an important role in its intrigue. It was also the year of The kingdom, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, winner of seven Goya, which, unlike the two previous games, focuses its entire argument on the corruption in Spain. In fact, it is an x-ray to the rhythm of a thriller a number of cases (Gürtel, Lezo, Punic, Barcenas…) not to mention none in particular. Part of the action takes place on the beaches and restaurants of El Saler, in the natural park of the lagoon of valencia of fresh water, and the protagonist of the series The pier, of Movistar.
Other films have taken advantage of the breeding ground of greed autochthonous to incorporate drops of corruption in their frames. In 2016, one Hundred years of forgiveness, of Daniel Calparsoro, recounting the assault on the headquarters of a bank in Valencia, which also keeps secrets politicians who could do a jump through the air to a government. In 2011, the director Max Lemcke presented Five square meters in size, that recreated a case of corruption, real estate in the valencian coast.
A still from the movie ‘the desentierro’.
‘Crematorium’, a reference
Precisely, in a coastal town of Alicante takes place the action of a series of foundation and a reference point in the Spanish television, Crematorium, premiered on Canal+ in 2011. It is considered as the x-ray more acerada and deep of the mechanisms of perversion staff that come together in the planning corruption and politics. This series, a precursor to the production of quality current, is based on a novel published in 2007 by the writer valencian Rafael Chirbes.
A sequence of ‘Crematorium’.
“The novel captures very well the state of things, the materialism that prevailed before the crisis. Already saw that came with dark clouds. And Chirbes does so through a family, a society of corruptors and the corrupt, of the relationship between industrialists, the banks, the politicians, and when the corruption was not in the mouth of all. When we began filming [in 2010], we thought that for its premiere it will be old so that he would know”.
“Now,” adds the producer for the duration of the war, by Alejandro Amenábar, “as a valencian, I resent the stigma of corruption when it has been a phenomenon throughout the State. It is true that there have been many cases, and a mentality of new rich, but also in other sites, even more, and maybe the media have not reflected so much.”
The director of the Agency for the Prevention of and Fight against Fraud and Corruption in the Valencian Community, Joan Llinares, shares this opinion: “As noted by Paul Preston in his last book [A people betrayed] corruption is systemic in Spain and travels around the State. “There is more to see the cases of Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia or the Basque Country, it seems that there has not”, apostille. However, there are objective reasons, such as the numerous open cases that are judged, or investigated or the imputations in different processes of three former presidents of valencia, Eduardo Zaplana, José Luis Olivas, and Francisco Camps, all of them of the PP, the party that ruled between 1995 and 2015. Llinares added a further explanation to the greater projection of the corruption of native: the character “esperpéntico or one-act farce” of some players and some situations.
A sequence of ‘All to jail’.
conversations between The Whiskers, the ‘facilitator’ of the Gürtel in Valencia, and Francisco Camps; the excargo who repented to dress hippy for having been “a fiend of the money”; the counselor of Cooperation, Rafael Blasco, imprisoned for stay aid money; the alleged bitten by the visit of Pope Benedict XVI and the celebration of the Formula 1 Grand Prix are some examples. The backlog of cases that became a cliché to mention the penultimate movie from Luis García Berlanga, All to the jail, in 1993, as a visionary, although he was referring to another context.
Llinares was commissioned to recover the money from the looting of the Palau de la Música of Barcelona and, as the manager of the IVAM, denounced the practices of the exdirectora Consuelo Ciscar, wife of Blasco, processed by the purchase of works allegedly fraudulent and investigated by help with the media museum to launch the art career of his young son, Rablaci. The office of Llinares has co-produced a short version of the documentary Corruption: the harmful organism, Teresa Soler and Albert Sanfeliu, to project officials, and university students.
Almost a one-act farce
This documentary was presented at the Filmoteca Valenciana, dependent deputy head of Audiovisual and Cinematography, José Luis Moreno. “The film reflects the reality and here there has been cases quite eye-catching, almost taken out of a farce, but it has also put the focus more in the Valencian Community than in other places,” says Moreno, who stands Crematorium as the best x-ray of the corruption. Your department granted support to this series and to The desentierro.
No movie is based faithfully on facts or real characters. Nor does The silence of the swamp. The writer of the novel published in 2015, and now adapted to film, Juanjo Braulio, he met as a journalist in various cases, but has not tried to do an analysis of the corruption. “In any case, it is a novel about power, set in the Albufera and in my neighborhood, The Cabanyal. The corrupt, the delegate of the Government and the exconsejero, could be one or the other. I wanted to make a homage to the novels in the valencian Blasco Ibáñez La barraca and Cañas y barro, in which the gentlemen are going to hunt in the Lagoon but their riches have their roots in the mud”, concrete.
