The en-genrement of the nation: The Spanish civil war film and Guillermo del Toro’s fantasies

Abstract

In this chapter, Egea uses Spanish film as a case study to test Rick Altman’s (1999) hypothesis on the usefulness of genre theory “to help us think about nations.” To do so, he analyses several films that return to the Spanish civil war and its historical trauma. Egea discusses how Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and The Devil’s Backbone (2001) revisit that historical event and subject it to what he calls a process of “en-gerement” by which the Spanish civil war film enters a new framework but also new markets. Ultimately, Egea proposes reversing the terms of Altman’s hypothesis and asks how, in a time of globalized cultural industries, the nation itself can help us think about genre theory.