The Captive by Amenábar is born in the scent (and probably praise) of controversies. Is there a possibility, however remote it may be, that Cervantes, our Cervantes, the one-armed Cervantes of Naupactus, the Cervantes of Francisco Rico, or even the Cervantes of Lladró figurines (which exist), was, in addition to all of the above, gay or, following Lorca's Ode to Walt Whitman, faerie, bird, joto, sarasa, celery, canco, flora, marica, or adelaida? In truth, in the over two hours that the film lasts, the only explicit comment on the writer's sexual orientation takes up just a few minutes, and the question is not resolved, if such a question even existed. It is not clear (why should it be?) whether it is the need embodied in the attempt to survive, as Spinoza would say, or rather the desire finally liberated that drives our protagonist to yield to the demands of his captor Hasán Bajá, who is indeed a documented homosexual without a veil. And in that doubt, let's say, lies the success of the film. Could it be that the very question soaked in homophobia and false controversy is what betrays us? But what does it matter, if there is no ball, there is a kick, as the philosopher Panadero Díaz would say.
Amenábar returns to his fondness for monumental characters and as he did with Unamuno in While at War, he once again demonstrates a keen and combative instinct for pinpointing the exact spot where it itches. And that, due to his will and wisdom in returning cinema to its place in everyday conversation, is already an achievement. And no small one. In truth, the director's proposal, far from being as absurd as some insist on making us believe, is overwhelming in its coherence. The idea is nothing other than to complete with imagination, free and rigorous at the same time (here the advice of the Cervantes scholar José Manuel Lucía Megías), the five years of mystery and imprisonment that the author of Don Quixote spent and suffered in Algiers. And all this without denying passage to any hypothesis and without neglecting that few human facets are as capable of transforming the world as sex. Because that's what it's about, how a man alone, in silence and with pen and paper as his only tools (not weapons), was able to transform everything. Whatever happens in those mysterious years, the truth is that the renewed individual who emerged after this test of life, which is also a test of death, was capable of everything, including forever changing the way we all who came after look at the world. Don Quixote, indeed, is not just a novel of novels, it is, as Foucault and Borges among others tried to demonstrate, the touchstone or just mirror in which modernity gazes upon itself. It sounds tremendous and, indeed, it is quite amusing.
The Captive starts and presents itself as an adventure film. A man struggles to escape from his captivity. History tells us that, among all those captured by the Berber corsairs, those nobles or from families with means were held awaiting ransom. Since Cervantes carried with him a letter of pardon signed by the King, he was taken for what he was not, a wealthy Christian (his false heroism due to a wound in his arm did not help to undo the misunderstanding). And so, the film begins in an evocative space where the most naive, orientalist, and exotic dreams easily ignite. Soon, however, the story changes to become a story within a story. Yes, to pass the long wait between one failed escape and the next, our hero, convincingly and tastefully portrayed by Julio Peña, will tell stories as if he were Sherezade herself in One Thousand and One Nights. These are stories that entertain, save, and, in their own way, transform the world, complete it, fill it with a necessary yet fleeting sense that, like sex itself and for a moment of light, turn the dream into reality, fabulation into life.
Undoubtedly, it is in this intuition where The Captive becomes great in offering an enthusiastic reflection on cinema, on the power of storytelling, on the mystery of mystery itself. As if it were a very Borgesian Book of Sand, the film understands that the greatest adventure, the most genuine and exuberant of all, thrives on nothing more than words, not images. And this illuminated way of reclaiming cinema and its always fascinating images through its most complete repudiation, far from being contradictory, seems as Cervantine as the sacred (and very amusing) moment when the reader of Don Quixote suddenly discovers, at the beginning of the second part, that what they are reading is nothing more than a translation from Arabic by an unknown author. Lie upon lie until reaching the only true freedom.
It is true that in its desire to encompass everything — to be at once an adventure, an escape, a melodrama, and a self-reflective speculation — at times, The Captive loses focus and even pulse. The film indulges quite self-complacently in its desire not to give up anything and to also be a fresco of a city and an era, half imagined and the other half faithful to historiography. And that is when it strays into affected anachronisms very much like Veneno (the series), which one cannot experience without impatience and some embarrassment. On the other hand, the characterizations of the inquisitor and traitor Juan Blanco de Paz, played by Fernando Tejero, and the Portuguese narrator of the barbarities suffered in captivity, Antonio de Sosa portrayed by Miguel Rellán, are very appealing. However, Alessandro Borghi's almost parodic portrayal as the cruel yet refined Hasán Bajá is confusing. Let's say that, after his long hiatus from cinema (excluding the series), it seems that the director has deeply reflected on the idea that "less is more". And no, definitively, he is not convinced by Mies Van der Rohe's maxim.
Foucault maintained in The Order of Things that Don Quixote is not so much lean flesh on long bone, as a sign. "His whole being is nothing but language, text, printed pages, history already transcribed. He is made of intertwined words; he belongs to the wandering writing of the world," it reads. Indeed, the La Mancha through which the hidalgo poorly gallops has long abandoned "the ancient games of resemblances." Reality is infected with the fiction that shelters, gives it wings, and ultimately gives it meaning. And Amenábar and his The Captive are convinced of this. They are so convinced that, one step further, they want the viewer to end up telling their own story not so much about Cervantes' homosexuality or lack thereof, but about the ways in which we enslave, label, and categorize ourselves, not Cervantes, in terms of sex. And all this with one goal: to challenge and discuss ourselves to, like the protagonist himself, liberate ourselves. It is not Cervantes, it is us.
Director: Alejandro Amenábar. Cast: Julio Peña, Alessandro Borghi, Miguel Rellán, Luna Berroa, Fernando Tejero, José Manuel Poga, Roberto Álamo, Luis Callejo. Duration: 133 minutes. Nationality: Spain.