Allegories of Aging Masculinity: The Myth of Don Quixote in Albert Serra’s Honor of the Knights

Abstract

This article develops a discussion of Albert Serra’s Honor of the Knights (2006) and his radical interpretation of Don Quixote on a final journey before death. The analysis explores Serra’s portrayal of the quixotic myth and argues that the film demythologizes the literary figure and unveils underlying meanings that can be read from the perspective of gender and aging. The article argues that rather than divest the myth, Serra’s film recognizes the quixotic mythology and reclaims the elements of the character that cast Don Quixote as the prototype of the sorrowful errant knight. Drawing from discourses on masculinity and aging the reading explores how Serra’s avant-garde esthetics and minimalist dialogues present an intimate and contemporaneous portrayal of the characters. Don Quixote’s journey through the landscapes becomes an allegory for a life journey where aging and decline, and the ordinariness of life, are juxtaposed with the chivalric ideals of the wandering knight. The discussion will focus on aspects of the film narrative where the quixotic myth as archetype speaks to us and voices his concerns about defection and decline, which resonates with present collective anxieties about senectitude and the perils of old age.

Notes

1 Anti-period filmmaking refers to period pieces that engage with historical times from a contemporary perspective. Serra’s filmography prominently features this genre. See Aguilar, “Elegy for Transgression” (2020, n.p.)

2 This point drawn here from Matthew Harkins’s argument made on his analysis of old age in King Lear. See Harkins, “The Politics of Old Age in Shakespeare’s King Lear” (1).

3 A similar point is made in González “El cine de Albert Serra” (2017, 89).

4 For a further discussion of Serra’s film esthetics see also Esther Zaplana’s “Aeging Myths and Dark Romanticism in Albert Serra’s Story of My Death” in Ageing Masculinities in Contemporary European and Anglophone Cinema.

5 On this point Fillies draws from Jenaro Tales Carmona. See Fillies, “La (im)perfecta amistad entre Don Quijote y Sancho” (2022, 34).

6 This point on the quixotic myth as stated in Marigno, see “Los mitos quevedescos” (64). See also Luis E. Linares Borboa, “Un Hidalgo Postmoderno” (2005, 29).

7 Sabugo Abril draws from Luis Rosales to argue that Cervantes’s characters are complex, and their psychology evolves in the course of the novel. This author highlights that Don Quixote’s characters are not fixed archetypes; they grow and develop their humanity and share a life dream that partakes of the theatricality embedded in the well-known “life as a dream” literary trope (la vida es sueño). Don Quixote fails to become a hero in his feigned armor and transforms into a tragic anti-hero who starts focusing on introspection and his own interiority. See Sabugo Abril “Cervantes y la Libertad” (1986, 113–115).

8 For a comprehensive analysis of the reasons for Don Quixote’s nickname “Knight of the Sorrowful Figure” see A. F. Michael Altee (1986) “Don Quixote: Caballero de la Triste Idea.”

9 Cuevas Cervera makes a similar point. See Cuevas (2016, 79).

10 Romero Márquez examines in depth the concept of ‘conciencia desventurada’ and its association with Don Quixote. He also develops a discussion on the origins and meanings of the concept embedded in the Quixotic myth (Romero 1986, 48–50).

11 Kristeva makes a distinction between melancholia and depression. She refers to melancholia as the chronic inhibition and asymbolia (inability to understand familiar symbols and signs) experienced by someone; these symptoms alternate with manic phases of exaltation. When the two phenomena are of “lesser intensity and frequency, it is possible to speak of neurotic depression” (Kristeva 1992, 9).

12 I am drawing this inference from the point made in Saxton and Thomas R. on the symbolic nature of the landscape as a timeless mythical place for narratives of heroic masculinity that do not go beyond the man’s middle age (their example is the male cowboy hero -always youthful- in the Texas plains). The timelessness of the landscape is Serra’s depiction suggests the placement of the anti-hero within the mythical space of the quintessential masculine hero. See Saxton and Thomas R. “No Country for Old Men” (2012, 101).

Additional information

Funding

The research work leading to the publication of this article was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Spanish Research Agency/Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) through the project “Género y edad” with grant number PCI2019-103512 (2019-2022).