Published on March 28, 2026
Less than a decade ago, the quality of narratives would have prevailed over the ideological bias of those who see and listen. Or perhaps not. Perhaps bias always existed but mattered less back then. Nowadays, it is difficult to watch films like these without suspecting interested subsidies for both based on different concepts. The cultural battle and other daily nonsense weave through the errant shadow of Cain.
There will be those who refuse to enjoy a well-crafted comedy like *La cena* ( Manuel Gómez Pereira). Not because it isn’t enjoyable, but because they might think it received funding from the “Franco year” government to commemorate its natural death (a decision, , that deserves another comedy).
It is a shame not to enjoy this film, as it is generally very refreshing and features a magnificent central character: the maître of the Hotel Palace, marvelously played Juan, who perfectly conveys comedy, pain, fear, heroism, or pathos depending on what the scene requires, sometimes within the same sequence. Mario Casas provides a commendable counterpart, and the supporting cast, especially the more seasoned actors, remain as solid as they have always been in our cinema. You can believe them whatever they wear or do. Thanks to the tone of the story, even Asier Etxeandia works as a despicable falangist, an inevitable cliché turned into a caricature of almost mythologized terror.
The only thing I would have omitted are a couple of obvious, completely unnecessary emphases, as everything could easily be deduced without an extra line. This is something the Spanish screenwriter rarely resists, ensuring there is no doubt about how the professionals of war, opportunists, rats, or dictators operated, especially during that moment in our increasingly distant history. But aiming for Lubitsch or Azcona in our current comedy is not realistic. Just the fact that some of them are no longer overly television-like (as they almost all are nowadays) is a significant achievement.
*Mediterráneo* is another proposal for a transparent and accurate narrative, with an undertone that the very discerning might find annoyingly ideological, despite the script and characters’ efforts to reduce the subject to an eminently humanitarian issue, subsumed under maritime law: the unavoidable moral obligation to save the shipwrecked, whoever they are, wherever they come from.
But this story tells the origin of *Open Arms*, and that is enough for domestic politics to throw the drowned ones back in our faces. No one seems to have considered that, for once, it is comforting that the Spaniards in the film are the ones shaking off the indifference toward the intolerable facing the citizens of another country.
The 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, with people dying en masse off the coast of Lesbos, is recounted through a handful of kamikaze rescuers coming from Barcelona in a medium-level film, one that is rarely produced in an industry as economically and otherwise polarized.
The only cinematic drawback is Dani Rovira. It’s not that he performs poorly; it’s just that he is Dani Rovira. You can’t believe it. He would need to be an extraordinary actor to rise above his monologuist character, the charming guy who fits well in comedies like *Ocho apellidos vascos* or *Voy a pasármelo bien*. He does fulfill his role, but it’s easier to believe Eduard Fernández swimming like a mermaid, and that truly is interpretative talent.
In any case, few films of this nature are made with such commendable results, marking yet another small triumph.