Forms of rage in Franco's Spain

Abstract

This video essay explores how the film Black bread (2010) by Agustí Villaronga foregrounds the relationship between vulnerability, fear, and rage in the context of economic, political, and sexual repression. It is a film that depicts a world of inequality and homophobia where children learn that violence is not an anomaly but a tool. Through the audiovisual format I argue that the film provokes thought on the complexity of rage and how to either challenge or perpetuate heteropatriarchal norms. The film makes visible the process through which the powerful manipulate the rage of the marginalized by shifting blame for their oppression. When shame and fear fuel rage, it loses its productive potential and becomes destructive. In denying his roots out of fear and rage, the protagonist reconstructs himself in the image of those behind his pain. There is no cinematic vision of a remedy to cruelty, or a productive use of rage. The conclusion suggests that representing that destructive process is enough.