Shame and Eviction in Juan Miguel del Castillo’s Techo y comida (2015)

Abstract

In 2014, Spain’s then prime minister Mariano Rajoy declared: ‘La crisis ya es historia’. This proclamation of recovery was based solely on macro-economic indicators and reinforced a flawed hegemonic narrative equating progress with economic growth. It ignored what Labrador Méndez calls ‘historias de vida subprime’: subjective and affective accounts of the enduring eviction crisis triggered by the 2008 financial meltdown and strict austerity measures. Juan Miguel del Castillo’s film Techo y comida is one such ‘subprime’ life story. It follows Rocío, a young, unemployed, single mother facing eviction from her rental property in the absence of state or community support. Exposing the flipside to the Rajoy’s statistics, the film reveals the increasingly brutal ‘expulsions’ (Sassen) that facilitate GDP recuperation. It politicizes through affect, showing that shame functions as a mechanism for social exclusion and normalisation but also as a catalyst for altruism. Within the diegesis, Del Castillo uncovers the potent, subjective shame that conceals expulsions and allows them to proliferate. This concurrently engenders shame in the spectator, encouraging them to consider their part in sustaining these degrading processes at micro-level and pointing them towards ‘non-capitalist practices’ (Castells et al).