Documenting Podemos and the Rise of DIY Politics in Fernando León de Aranoa’s Política, manual de instrucciones (2016)

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Abstract

Centring on Fernando León de Aranoa’s Política, manual de instrucciones, this article examines what Antonio Gramsci has called the ‘crisis of authority’ in the context of (post-)crisis Spain. I claim that León de Aranoa’s documentary feature not only registers the emergence of Podemos as a nascent political party, but also attempts to legitimize Podemos as the only viable parliamentary alternative to the hegemony of the Partido Popular (PP) and the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE).

RESUMEN

Centrándose en Política, manual de instrucciones (Fernando León de Aranoa, 2016), este artículo examina lo que Antonio Gramsci ha llamado la ‘crisis de autoridad’ dentro del contexto de la (post-)crisis en España. Sostengo que el documental de León de Aranoa no sólo registra la emergencia de Podemos como nasciente partido político, sino que también intenta legitimar a Podemos como la única alternativa parlamentaria a la hegemonía del Partido Popular (PP) y el Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE).

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Eva Garrido Pérez and Fernando León de Aranoa for their time and generosity in facilitating permissions to reproduce the images above.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 A. O. Scott situates León de Aranoa within a group of European filmmakers such as Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Laurent Cantet who examine ‘the present condition of the continent’s working class’ with ‘pessimism and compassion’ alike (2003).

2 While Sally Faulkner acknowledges the instability of the term ‘middlebrow', she argues that it represents ‘an important category within popular cinema’, particularly given its efforts to attract a wide viewership (2016, 6). Middlebrow cinema, as she contends, aims to address questions of social and/or political context, thus attracting ‘aspirational audiences’ or spectators willing to question the world around them (2016, 6).

3 Núria Triana-Toribio has written on the privileging of cine social or cine comprometido from the late 1990s onward as what the so-called establishment prioritizes as ‘the most legitimate [form of] Spanish cinema’ (2003, 155). She points out that various national and regional awards, as well as a range of public funding schemes, have rewarded films that ‘engage with Spanish “reality”’ (2003, 156).

4 In line with Quintana’s thesis, Martín Paradelo Núñez alleges that León de Aranoa’s filmic projects are too focused on ‘la realidad empírica y que, por lo tanto, se reduce[n] a adoptar soluciones formales tendentes al documental’ (2014).

5 Here I would include directors such as Icíar Bollaín, Achero Mañas, Gracia Querejeta, and Chus Gutiérrez.

6 The staging of the first citizens’ assembly at the Vistalegre Arena, both intra-filmically and extra-filmically, reflects the making-of that takes place in Política, as León de Aranoa and members of Podemos mount their own representations of the party’s evolution before our very eyes (Figures 1–3).

Figure 1. Members of Podemos draft the stage design for the 2014 Vistalegre Assembly. Image reproduced with the permission of Mediapro.

Figure 2. Highly charged signifiers such as democracia, derechos, soberanía, and pueblo hang from the rafters in the 2014 Vistalegre Assembly. Image reproduced with the permission of Mediapro.

Figure 3. Party members prepare the stage for the Podemos’s 2014 Asamblea Ciudadana. Image reproduced with the permission of Mediapro.

7 See Snyder (2014) and Nadal-Melsió (2017).

8 See Lopez-Bernal et al. (2013) and Ruiz-Pérez et al. (2017).

9 Article 573 now outlines the following as evidence of terrorist activity: ‘Subvertir el orden constitucional, o suprimir o desestabilizar gravemente el funcionamiento de las instituciones políticas […], alterar gravemente la paz pública y […] provocar un estado de terror en la población o en una parte de ella’ (Artículo 573 de La Ley Orgánica 2015).

10 In his 2016 Christmas speech, Felipe insisted upon the importance of ‘una convivencia democrática basada en el respeto a la ley’ (Felipe VI 2016). More recently, the King claimed that elected officials in Catalonia ‘han quebrantado los principios democráticos de todo estado de derecho’ (Felipe VI 2017a). In his Christmas speech from 2017, however, Felipe struck a more conciliatory tone, but insisted that the newly elected Catalan parliament — after the snap election on 21 December 2017 — should follow ‘un camino que debe conducir a que renazca la confianza, el prestigio y la mejor imagen de Cataluña’ (Felipe VI 2017b).

11 Querejeta, daughter of the film’s producer Elías Querejeta, collated Rodríguez and León de Aranoa’s footage, giving the film, in the latter’s words, ‘algo de improvisación’ (as quoted in Torreiro 2017, 181).

12 As Ramiro notes, following Borrell’s resignation in 1999, the PSOE was left in shambles: ‘Surrounded by a climate of internal turmoil, the recently defeated General Secretary Almunia was nominated candidate to PM. After that, the PSOE suffered a crushing defeat in the 2000 elections’ (2016, 128).

13 As Stuart Hall has asserted, the neoliberal revolution has produced ‘a massive de-politicization’ of the social order from the 1980s to the present, which some might misinterpret ‘as “disaffected consent”’ (2011, 723).

14 The following list, while partial, is representative of documentary cinema produced in Spain since 2008: Alcaldessa (Pau Faus, 2016), Metamorphosis (Manuel Pérez Cáceres, 2016), Informe general II: el nuevo rapto de Europa (Pere Portabella, 2015), 15M: ‘Excelente. Revulsivo. Importante’ (Stéphane M. Grueso, 2013), Tomaremos las calles (Javi Larrauri, 2013), ¡¿Por qué?! Una crisis endémica (Marc Balaguer, 2013), Libre te quiero (Basilio Martín Patino, 2012), La marcha indignada (Alberto Reverón and Amira Bochenska, 2012), Mis ahorros, su botín (Borja Casal Martí, 2012), Banderas falsas (Carlos Serrano Azcona, 2011), Mercado de futuros (Mercedes Álvarez, 2011), and €SPANISH DR€AM (Guillermo Cruz and Santiago Cirugeda, 2009).

15 Errejón emphasizes the longer history of public assembly in Spain, however, looking back to 1976, which he calls ‘el año de mayor auge de las huelgas, de las movilizaciones [y] de presión popular’ (Errejón and Mouffe 2015, 22). The ferocity of the street protests from 1976, in his analysis, guaranteed that ‘la dictadura no pudiera seguir sin hacer modificaciones’ (22).

16 As Bill Nichols has written, observational documentarians tend to opt for productions that do not feature voice-over commentary, supplementary music, sound effects, historical re-enactments, or interviews with participants. The abandonment of control over the staging, he argues, ‘affirms a sense of commitment or engagement with the immediate, intimate, and personal as it occurs’ (2010, 177).

17 Juanma del Álamo, in a contemptuous review of Política, argues that León de Aranoa’s film ‘es un espectacular lavado de imagen de Podemos’ that, ultimately, fails to ‘ofrecer ningún matiz o voz discordante’ (2016).

18 Iván Reguera offers a more generous take, claiming that ‘este documental es absolutamente impensable en los partidos tradicionales. El nivel de accesibilidad, transparencia, honestidad y falta de puesta en escena que muestra la gente de Podemos es algo muy de agradecer’ (2016a).

19 León de Aranoa explains his historical intentions thus: ‘Pensamos que dejar testimonio de lo que pasara, fuera peor o mejor, para la gente que puede ver este trabajo dentro de 15, 20 años, es lo que queríamos hacer. Dejar testimonio de un momento interesante. Y quizás histórico’ (as quoted in Agencia EFE 2016).

20 Featuring relatable, if demonstrably staged, photographs of Iglesias, Carolina Bescansa, Errejón, Pablo Echenique, and Pablo Bustinduy, the 26J prospectus framed the upcoming election as a historic opportunity to design ‘un nuevo horizonte de cambio y progreso para nuestro país’ (Bescansa, et al. 2016, 1). Nevertheless, some may bristle at Podemos’s replication of an Ikea-style catalogue, particularly given what The Economist has characterized as the ‘strange death’ of social democracy in Sweden over the last decade (‘The Strange Death of Social-Democratic Sweden’ 2010).

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Bryan Cameron

Bryan Cameron is University Lecturer in Modern Spanish Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge. His research centres on modern Spanish culture with a focus on literary, filmic, and ideological production from the eighteenth century to the present. He has also worked on cultural output from (post-)crisis Spain, examining protest movements, narrative and documentary cinema, and visual print media from 2008 to the present. He has edited a Special Issue of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies (15.1/15.2; 2014) on Spain in Crisis: 15-M and the Culture of Indignation. His current book-length project, Paternity Tests: Destabilized Authority in the Late-Nineteenth-Century Spanish Novel, studies the erosion of patrilineal succession in novels following the decay of the liberal programme launched by the Revolution of 1868.