Colour
Exhibit A in the case that satire does not work in the hands of fascists.
I’m not as well versed in the history of Spanish cinema as I should be, though I’m aware that even under Franco’s dictatorship various films were made which looked at the way society actually worked. Even within the system there were films which picked up and examined (even poked fun at) the system.
This is decidedly not one of them.
To say that ‘Tarzan in Madrid’ is heavy handed is to put it mildly. It is a jack booted, full-on, completely blinkered, pro-government, anti-everything else but the proper authorities, screed. The Tarzan tale is of course one highly malleable and can be used in so many different ways – which is odd, as unlike Robin Hood, say, it’s generally used in the same way. Here, as normal, Tarzan (Edson de Nascimento, a Portuguese actor and a good looking charisma void) is found by explorers in the jungle and brought to civilisation. Normally when Tarzan makes that journey he heads to England or New York. Here though he goes to Spain, and not just some crappy package holiday to the Costa Del Sol, instead he gets to wow and wonder at the marvel of Franco’s Madrid.
But – and here is where if I was the barrister for the prosecution, I’d speak in my firmest voice – this is where things get decidedly strange. Rather than just marvelling at tall buildings and cars and indoor plumbing, none of which this noble savage has never seen, Tarzan instead goes to war against a socialist cell which is determined to bring down Spain. True, he does briefly flirt with their message, but after a stiff telling off from Juana (the Jane of the story), he becomes righteously pro-government and charges across the city dealing out fists and lectures, before tying up the insurgents with vine he always keeps around his person. Subtly is nowhere in the production’s vocabulary.
The message of this movie is that by even a primitive-like Tarzan can see that communists are evil cretins. Tarzan is forever referred to as ‘The Primitive’, to the point even he looks tired of it. There is also a running joke that everybody he speaks to thinks he sounds French (despite the actor clearly having a Portuguese accent) and apparently sounding French is a sign of mental negligibility. So this primitive from the deepest, darkest jungle, who speaks like a Frenchman for crying out loud, is able to see how ridiculous and against everybody’s interest communism is.
And if Tarzan can see it, certainly someone as bright as YOU can see it.
That’s not the end of the message though. The satire (if that's the right word) takes a further broad turn when a kidnapped Cheetah finds himself elected leader of the communist cell.
So the great hero Tarzan sees off the communists and rescues Spain and is feted as a hero at the end. And one has to wonder what the point of all this is. Clearly there’s an element of warning the audience against the dangers of socialism/communism (the two terms were interchangeable in the subtitles of the version I saw), but then the socialists/communists on screen are made to appear so ridiculous that they find themselves led by a chimpanzee. Their characters are never developed, their ideas are set up to be easily mocked and totally ridiculous, and of course it’s nonsense that anyone would ever follow them. Communism/socialism is bad and evil and everyone of the left is a complete idiot who deserves either a smack from a jungle ‘primitive’ or for a chimpanzee to fart in their face.
Except, of course, that all this overkill inevitably leads to another reading: one which suggests that a totalitarian government will see fit to hire any muscled, bully boy (even when he wears a loin cloth and supposedly sounds French) to throw his weight around and give beatings to those who disagree with it.
I think that second reading is
entirely accidental however, but it makes me smile that it doesn’t stretch too much of the imagination to find it there.
Apparently Franco loved this film
and laughed his head off each time he saw it. So at least ‘Tarzan in Madrid’
appealed to its target audience.
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