The Black Ball vs Torrente: two films, two Spains, one culture war

Two films, two Spains: cinema as a trench

A comedy about a crude cop released in 1997 and a film about the Civil War with a dreamlike aesthetic. Between the two, according to the framing that peine this conversation, lies the whole Spanish cultural divide: The Black Ball as an emblem of sensitivity, abstraction and international reach; Torrente as a portrait of vulgarity, intellectual underdevelopment and inbreeding. That allocation of labels —centre-left versus right— is the starting point, not the conclusion.

The discussion soon broke the mould. The first objection is chronological: when Torrente hit theatres, much of the pogre audience embraced it without reservations; anyone who did not celebrate it risked being branded as close to the then ruling PP (Spain's conservative People's Party). Thirty years later, the same film is read as a right-wing product. The labels change owners.

Is Torrente a right-wing film?

The second front is ideological. Torrente is a satire of the reactionary, flag-and-beret Spaniard, and its protagonist ends up leading a party called NOX. Hard to argue the portrayal is a tribute. Some see in it the right's capacity for self-criticism; others reply that the film laughs at the average Spaniard while subsidised cinema laughs at the other Spain. Both readings coexist unresolved.

The case of The Black Ball is different. The most repeated criticism is not aesthetic but narrative: yet another take on the Civil War with the "runners-up" rewriting history their own way, funded with public money, promoted institutionally and with an aesthetic some consider a deliberate distortion of Catholic imagery —the figure of Saint Sebastian treated as an icon, not as a church statue.

The awkward figure: box office takings

The most uncomfortable argument for both sides is commercial. The Black Ball outgrossed Torrente, according to the figure circulating in the conversation. For some, that proves the left wins; for others, exactly the opposite: that the right can go to the cinema to watch Torrente guilt-free, while the other only mobilises its own flock and the promotional apparatus. The box office settles nothing.

Spanish cinema as a subsidised business

The thread drifts towards the funding model. The recurring accusation: a cinema sustained by taxes, promoted by the government and bought by sympathetic critics, producing a niche product with an audience mobilised by ideology rather than quality. Opposite stands the argument that the commercial success of an unsubsidised film proves audiences choose freely.

The conversation escalates into general political conflict —revolutions, elites, privileges— and there it stops being useful. What remains is one piece of evidence: two Spanish films separated by three decades work as an identity marker, and that marker changes sign depending on which way the wind blows.

What will happen when the next Civil War film sweeps the box office again and someone celebrates it as a cultural victory?