Anti-war and necessary comedy: nthe third millennium, era of the new dictators, those of the past 1900s should be a warning!
Taken from THE DINNER OF THE GENERALS play by José Luis Alonso De Santos and GOYA nominee
Plot: Spain, 1939. Just two weeks after the end of the Civil War, General Franco orders a celebratory dinner at the luxurious Palace Hotel in Madrid. A young lieutenant, the hotel maître d' and a group of republican prisoners – opponents of the Franco regime but gifted with great talent in the kitchen – they are forced to prepare the banquet in record time. Everything seems to be going smoothly, but the cooks are planning not only the banquet... but also their escape.
Review: in this third millennium where there is no shortage of dictators, the Spanish director Pereira brings withering humor, as is usual, reminds us of the fiftieth anniversary of the restoration of Freedoms in Spain after the death of the Caudillo who from 1936, at the end of the bloody Spanish civil war, he took power for over forty years until his death.
The idea is a dinner that the dictator wants to be held with his top coup-plotting generals to celebrate the victory at the famous Hotel Palace in Madrid, known at the time for its sumptuousness, so as to demonstrate all its power (sic) based on fear.
At that time during the civil war the Hotel had become a place of suffering where the wounded from this terrible clash between opposing factions which caused many victims on both sides were treated as much as possible, especially among civilians.
The ferocious face of the Franco regime is personified by Franco's personal guard, but also by a second lieutenant Medina who despite everything is recruited by the new regime.
The story starts from this controversial character with an incipit that shows us with archive images the destruction and misery into which Spain was plunged at the time.
On the other hand we know the equally controversial character played by the Director of the Hotel Palace who tries to keep the roots of the institution he directs intact to the point of organizing the dinner with a thousand difficulties.
The various characters who interact for the success of the dinner are caricatures of themselves: starting precisely from the Francoists, but also starting from the "red" partisans who do not believe that a tragedy is happening to them and hoping that something will happen to save them! Thus the dinner desired by the dictator manages to steal (at least momentarily) those defeated by summary shooting.
In fact, among them there are the best chefs in Madrid and so is Second Lieutenant Medina, but also the dictator's henchmen are forced to come to terms with the Hotel Director to use the "red" cooks in the preparation of dinner on one day.
In the various characters we find all the feelings and fragilities of the human being expertly dosed in the dramaturgy of the story.
#ACDinnerWithTheDictator it is a story with bloody tones as in the best tradition of Spanish cinema which is also biting for us Latins.
It's incredible, however, how the story can be borrowed today.
Various film genres from comedy to horror are mixed in the staging, but what stands out is the hope of a better world as long as we survive such disastrous events.
A director's trick with a thrown-in clue of an address written in pen on the wrist of a future father (symbol of hope) of a well-known Parisian restaurant "Chez TONTON" allows the director to launch the last sarcastic scene of the final union between dictators of the time: Franco and Hitler. Both are caricatures of themselves and are reminiscent of Chaplin's most famous film The Dictator.
A film which is therefore a message for all of us who today are witnessing without doing anything another global tragedy with the new dictators Putin and Trump: the first revealed in a while, the second which is now revealing its worst side.
But let's hear from director MANUEL GÓMEZ PEREIRA the genesis of this new project of his:
“AN ANTI-WAR COMEDY – For Dinner with the Dictator I was inspired by Lubitsch's American cinema, Billy Wilder, Woody Allen, but also to Italian cinema, with Fellini's biting comedies, Dino Risi, Alberto Sordi, Vittorio Gassman.
Closer to us, also recalls Jojo Rabbit, that brilliant satire on Nazism that mixes reality and farce, e – why not? – Inglourious Basterds, with its particular mix of violence and black humor.
The story was born from an extraordinary premise: a banquet organized for none other than General Franco at the Hotel Palace in Madrid! As a dark epilogue to a devastating Spanish Civil War, the story crosses tragedy and comedy, revealing all the pathos of that moment: the immediate post-war period, imprisonment, repression, fear, death, hatred, hunger and collective failure.
I do not wish to transform this work into a comedy that trivializes the harshness of that conflict.
I wanted to bring it to a profoundly human level – the most important of all – with all its lights and shadows, his pain and his smile.
All these elements made me understand, after reading the play, that Dinner with the Dictator was supposed to be my next film: an anti-war comedy, and a necessary comedy.”
luigi Noera