The Old Man in the Basement: Reflection on Old Age in the Films of Fernando Fernán-Gómez

Abstract

The actor and filmmaker Fernando Fernán-Gómez embodies like few others the reflection on aging in contemporary Spanish cinema. His stage of creative maturity coincides with the arrival and consolidation of democracy in Spain after the death of dictator Francisco Franco. In his films, Fernán-Gómez carries out a systematic analysis of the role of older people in Western society, who move in the conflict between the marginalized role to which they are relegated and the resistance to remain on the sidelines. In this article, we will analyze the three most significant films in this regard. The first of them, Mambrú se fue a la guerra (1986), shows us the violence of a social system that condemns an ex-combatant of the civil war to grow old hidden in his own house for fear of Franco’s reprisals, as well as the convenience of not coming out of hiding when democracy arrives in order to benefit from the subsidies. In the second, El viaje a ninguna parte (1986), the patriarch of a traveling theater company refuses to succumb to a profession that many consider a mere echo of the past. And in the last one, El mar y el tiempo (1989), Fernán-Gómez focuses on the figure of the exile who returns after decades to his country of origin. These three films, made consecutively, represent a triptych that shows the different aspects of the difficult way in which society assumes older people once they are no longer considered useful and productive.