Basque to the future

Laura B, back from our 51st almost state, has something to share with us:

Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Orange

Ocho apellidos vascos (Eight Basque surnames / Spanish affair)

San Juan, Puerto Rico

What do these two movies have in common? They’re the last examples of my paying $7.50 to see a movie in the theater. That’s it. I thought $7.50 was outrageous in 1980, but a super-bargain in 2015. Times change.


Ocho apellidos vascos translates as Eight Basque surnames. For some reason the movie powers changed the title to The Spanish Affair for the English-language audience. Annoying, but don’t let that stop you from seeing this film. It’s chock-full of stereotypes, but not what you’d expect.

The Spanish film reviewers were harsh in their criticism, thinking it too offensive for the general public. The Spanish audience LOVED it; I imagine from Bilbao to Gibraltar all sighed a collective breath of fresh air. What’s been hidden under years of post-Franco oppression (and let’s face it, Franco was pretty oppressive himself) is finally let loose for all to look at and laugh at.

Amaia, jilted by her would-be husband, decides to head south to Seville to raise some hell. Rafa, a local who has never left Andalusia, falls. In a bit of a stalker fashion, he follows Amaia back to Euskadi, and the brawls and insults follow. It is hilarious to watch something so foreign, so disconnected, so distasteful unfold before your eyes. When the bigotry is not your own, it adds a level of understanding about your own held beliefs. If that doesn’t get you, the smoky sex scene will. I haven’t seen anything like that in the theater since before 1980, whoa.