Lock yourself in the house, run lots of washing machines, take inventory of the pantry (my great-grandmother did that), don’t leave the radio behind… And you, what did you do during the night of February 23, 1981? Where did the attempt catch you? coup d’état of Tejero? How do your grandparents or parents remember it? This is the starting point of “Alone in the Night”Guillermo Rojas’ novelty.
The film tells the story of a group of labor lawyers who decide to go into hiding in a house during the coup. Not knowing what to do, they will debate whether to flee the country, continue to hide, or try to do something to defend Spain’s young democracy. This will lead to bizarre and comical situations with the fear that the riot will triumph in the background.
“It’s about what it means to be afraid and how it stops us from enjoying life. It’s about the fear of growing up and being brave. It’s about fighting for what we love and living each day as if it were our last,” the director explains to Le Sixième.
Filmed in Utrera and Priego de Córdoba, the plot takes place in the hours that pass from the entry of the Civil Guards into Congress to the televised message of the king. Minutes of uncertainty in which “My parents, for example, even considered leaving the country if things got complicated,” says the filmmaker from Cordoba. His father, like the protagonists, worked as a lawyer in an employment agency and that night he also chose to hide. “When the coup failed, the joy was such that they felt that they had a big party. As a result, nine months later, I came into the world,” he adds.
This is not the case of Felix Gomezwho plays Toni, one of the protagonists. “My family comes from the other Spain, from the one where ‘we don’t talk about this’. I don’t remember, even as a child, that we talked about it at home. At home, 23F was something that happened, which fortunately we didn’t manage and we want to forget,” says the actor, who insists on the importance of telling this story. “We have to talk about it and do it from other angles, and this script achieves that,” he adds.
But “Alone in the Night” is not just a story about 23F, the film is also talks about the role of women, motherhoodrelationships, struggles for ideas, of the fragility of acquired rights; and he does it with an intelligent, precise and very acidic script. To frame, and without spoilers, sequences like the “lullaby” that Manolo and Carmen sing to their daughter during the car escape, Paco’s radio monologue (a brilliant Pablo Gomez) or the appearance of the military cousin in the living room.
“It is curious that the monologue of Paco (another lawyer of the firm) is so current and what a pity that it is so necessary. There are many Young people vote for the far right and say atrocities without any historical rigor,” explains Félix Gómez. “There is a wink in the film, a constant dialogue between the past and the present. They deal with issues that, yes, continue to concern us in 2024,” adds Beatriz Arjona (Carmen in the film).
Verses of Rubén Darío and an uncle tuno
“Alone at Night” also stands out the role of radio in those turbulent hours. In fact, Guillermo Rojas (also the film’s screenwriter) chooses to narrate and recount Tejero’s entrance to the hemicycle without images, only with the radio. It still seems to give goosebumps today, even knowing that the coup would not succeed.
The fear of what would have happened, of what could have been lost that February night, is visible in the character of Andrea Carballo, a lawyer who had to flee her country in 1976. Her dialogue with the character of Carmen (Beatriz Arjona) sums up in just three minutes what Argentine military dictatorship.
THE poetry is also present (and many) in the story. The role of Toni (Félix Gómez) is constantly nourished by the verses by Rubén Daríoand it’s no coincidence. “The character is inspired by an uncle I had who was a tuno. He talked to me about poetry and told me that we had to make girls love poetry. He also fell in love with Bécquer,” explains the director, who asked Félix Gómez to exaggerate and use Máximo Valverde or Arturo Fernández as references. “I couldn’t believe it was inspired by someone real, it all seemed so fake. I found out about this story two days ago,” adds the actor with a laugh.
A risky proposition and a coherent cast to tell Spain that we were, for pay tribute to our parents, to the young people of the Transition. “We take rights and freedoms for granted without realizing it, In one second everything can go to shit; and that’s why this film is beautiful. This story needs to be told, it needs to be seen,” says Félix Gómez. Shut up, everyone… “Alone in the Night” hits theaters on Friday, September 20.
