5 Spanish films to enjoy Christmas… because not everything was going to be Love Actually
November had not even begun when the image of Maria Carey began to thaw since she was silenced last Christmas. The Christmas holidays are a faithful procession of traditions. The American artist’s All I want for Christmas has, for many, replaced the old carols. Wham!’s Last Christmas is not far behind. In the cinema, foreignisms are no less so. In fact, it could be said that films like Love Actually, Holidays or Home Alone are already classics in Western society. But what many forget is that Spain also has its own hits. Some of them are true classics of Spanish cinema. Others, like Klaus, are recent creations. Even Netflix premiered a Christmas miniseries last year. Why not explore different traditions from the usual ones while you learn Spanish in an entertaining way?
‘Take your respective poor to share your Christmas dinner with them.’ This sentence from the script of Plácido is perhaps the phrase that best sums up this 1961 feature film directed by Luis García Berlanga. The film’s plot revolves around the night of December 24, when, in a small town, the fictitious company Ollas Cocinex sponsors an auction for the poor. The idea is that the needy can share Christmas Eve dinner with bourgeois families. Meanwhile, the protagonist, Plácido, must manage to pay the first installment on his car.
The film actually hides an acid criticism against bourgeois society, which the filmmaker accuses of performing charity actions with the intention of clearing their consciences. In fact, the origin of the film is in a campaign devised by the Franco regime whose slogan was ‘sit a poor man at your table’. The most curious thing of all is that Berlanga managed to release Plácido in the midst of Franco’s regime, circumventing censorship through subtleties and balancing acts. In its day it became an international success and was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Animation was just beginning to take off in Spain when Three Kings, a 2003 film directed by Antonio Navarro, was released and received a Goya nomination for best animated film. The feature film, whose title already gives considerable clues to the plot, tells the story of how three magicians became the Three Kings. It is a film with a basic structure aimed mainly at children and no big surprises. A film in which, as one of the characters says, ‘there are treasures, pretty girls and bad guys who get what they deserve‘.
‘We had grown up isolated, unaware, but happy and nothing made us suspect that Christmas would change our lives forever…’. The third film on this list is not actually a film, but a miniseries. But a very mini miniseries, with only three chapters of one hour each. It could be considered a film rather than a series in itself. Pau Freixas directed this film, which was released by the streaming platform Netflix in 2019. It tells the story of the Christmas celebration of four sisters in four stages of their lives. In the first season the protagonists are still teenagers, almost children. In the second they are already adults. And in the third, the characters are on the verge of old age.
A film that also earned its fame as a Christmas film was La gran familia (The Big Family). Released barely a year after Plácido, in 1962, the film by Fernando Palacios and Rafael J. Salvia reflects values totally different from those of Berlanga’s film. In fact, La gran familia is considered one of the main exponents of Franco’s ideology of the time, extolling the high birth rate and Catholic values. The film tells the story of a married couple, their 15 children, grandfather and godfather and how they get ahead. From this movie there is a scene that became very popular. It is when Chencho, one of the little ones, gets lost in the crowded Plaza Mayor in Madrid, which was decorated with typical Christmas decorations.
We could not end this short list without talking about Klaus, the animated feature film that triumphed in 2019. Directed by Sergio Pablos, this film is set in the village of Smeerenburg, a settlement that, by the way, did exist and was located in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. In the film, Smeerenburg enjoys the reputation of being the unhappiest place in the world, but an ancient enmity keeps one half of the village at odds with the other. Everything will change with the arrival of Jesper, a disastrous messenger who is sent there against his will. The unfortunate letter carrier will meet Klaus, a secretive and mysterious toymaker. An original version of the Santa Claus story.
Klaus garnered a large number of awards at the time, including seven awards at the Annie Awards and recognition for Best Animated Film at the BAFTA Awards. It received two nominations at the Goya Awards and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. Despite being a cartoon film, Klaus is enjoyable for anyone of any age and should be a Christmas must-see.
Álex de la Iglesia, together with Jorge Guerricaechevarría, created this comedy centered on the arrival of the Antichrist. A priest, played by Álex Angulo, must manage to avoid such an event, which will take place on December 25. Together with a heavy, Santiago Segura, and a mystery show host, Armando de Razza, he will travel through a Madrid plagued by Satanism, violence and Christmas. His scene in the Schweppes advertisement in the Carrión building is one of the most remembered scenes in the cinema of the nineties. In short, a Spanish alternative to Die Hard for those who want a Christmas classic with action.
