The Spanish Past in Transnational Films. The ‘Otherlands’ of Memory

Abstract

Translated by Chase RaymondBased on the work of theoreticians prevalent in the field of Memory Studies (Rothberg, Nora, Radstone, Aguilar, Faber, de Diego, Gómez López-Quiñones and Labanyi), this article analyses the films The Devil Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth by the Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro as examples of a memory-formation that is deeply entrenched within Spain’s current political, legal and cultural debates on the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship and the political immunity institutionalised by the Transition’s pact of silence. At the same time, as emerging from ‘otherlands’ of memory, Del Toro’s films are good examples of how multidirectional memories react to universal/transnational concerns about traumatic pasts and violations of human rights.