La Linterna Mágica

A German documentary filmmaker travels to Madrid to do a TV program about the city and the Spanish civil war commemorating its 50th anniversary.

This literary film is imbued with the disenchantment of Spanish exiles who left their homes to protest Franco's fascist regime and then returned after its demise to find that democracy had not instilled either ethics or deep motivation in government leaders. Director Basilio Martin Patino presents his story, and a large part of the film is based on his own life, through the experiences of an exiled heroine played by Charo Lopez. She has returned to Spain to look for meaning in her life, something that she never found living in Germany, not even after having a child. She is also in the process of translating the German lyric poet Friederich Holderlin (see the 1985 Halfte Des Lebens) into Spanish, focusing on his epic Hyperion. Excerpts from the translation are voiced over throughout the film. As she looks up old friends from many, many years ago, even those who have achieved worldly success are suffering from the same ennui that propelled her back home.

The film starts with the confluence of the 15M protesters in Puerta del Sol, follow the construction of the Camping Sol, a kind of parallel city assemblies, whose structure extends to neighborhoods and nearby cities and all over Spain. After what happened attest, without mediation or intention, the film lets the images speak and describe the end of the experience.