After World War II and in the midst of the Cold War, science fiction cinema was filled with fear of the atomic bomb. Godzilla, without going any further, was a monster created by such a mutation, and American movies of the 1950s constantly hinted that science had something amoralas if its inevitable consequence were the creation of monsters and the destruction of worlds.
Luckily, we haven’t experienced anything like a world war (so far), but the Covid pandemic has left memories and key consequences around the world, many of which we are still unable to grasp: only history will be able to see us in perspective. And fiction, beyond the initial surprise, which led to doing unfortunate things to get by like ‘Diaries of quarantine’ or ‘Corona zombies’, is already beginning to analyze and weigh what it has really meant in our way of see the world. ‘Blackout’ was born as an adaptation of a podcast prior to all this, but it evolves as a profoundly post-pandemic series, designed to learn from our mistakes and prepare for the next blow. And besides, it is one of the best Spanish series in history. All in one.
an electric environment
The series itself does not avoid comments about 2020: in the first episode, when one of the characters comments that a statewide blackout is impossible, another replies that a pandemic was also impossible and look how we ended. The creators are perfectly aware that, when it comes to showing five stories of the modern apocalypse, already science fiction is not a valid genre, because we have experienced a similar alarm situation and we know exactly how we react. If in the original podcast (the fabulous ‘The Great Blackout’) the story ended up drifting into sects and other craziness, here everything is contained in the same message, perhaps somewhat naïve, but it didn’t quite catch on at the time: people need each other to survive… And only kindness will make us stay afloat.
Throughout the episodes of ‘Blackout’ we have from westerns to political thrillers through horror and even a space for the social. No one can say that its five chapters resemble each other, even if they have similar morals. This variety, which works very much in favor of the work as a whole, is thanks to a list of absolutely star directors and screenwriters.
Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Raúl Arévalo, Alberto Rodríguez, Isa Campo and Isaki Lacuesta have been in charge of one episode each and they have done what they wanted with all the variety of means that they have needed. I do not know if Movistar Plus +, whose series (with some exceptions such as ‘Vergüenza’, ‘Perfect life’ or ‘Look what you have done’) do not end up having the notoriety they seek, is betting everything on a last attempt to acquire relevance or is it an Apple-style statement of intent: less, but better.
No lights on the horizon
There may be those who despise ‘Blackout’ when comparing it with ‘The Event’, the fabulous French series from a few years ago, but, although it loses technical spectacularity with respect to thatwins in veracity and its own tone: the variety of genres helps to have an overview of that new society, instead of trying to get a series with a similar atmosphere and failing miserably.
The progression of the episodes of ‘Blackout’ is subtle but impressive: it starts like an episode of ’24’ and leaves the feeling that it will always live with this intensity, but nothing is further from reality. Slowly, frustration gives way to routine, and routine to happiness. The threat of other human beings is always there, as are moral dilemmas or the struggle for survival, but they are general themes in a new world in which each director has put all the meat on the grill to inhabit their little apocalypse space.
It is true that not all chapters manage to maintain the level of quality, and in some there is a slight stumble, but if the lowest point of a series is a posh home invasion that talks about class struggle and adolescent identity in a world in ruins, how will it be the highest? And it is that even when ‘Blackout’ becomes somewhat obvious in the mirror with the reality that it puts in the episode dedicated to the toilets it is still fabulous, created with care, quality and style. When they say that in Spain we are audiovisual references, we will have to start believing it.
The final apocalypse caught us at a macrofestival
‘Blackout’ uses genre film codes to tell very close stories using dystopia as a base, and the mixture works like a shot: what in other times we would distinguish as science fiction, today is closer to reality than ever. Its characters are not the classic protagonists of the story looking for the solution to the problem, but simple secondary characters who, instead of living great adventures alone they try to acclimatize and survive in a world that has suffered a setback for which they were not prepared. Does it sound like something to you?
The Movistar series is very unsubtle at times, and somewhat random in the decisions of some of its characters, yes, but most of the time it is shining brightly. During five episodes we are shown the importance of society as a whole more than individually, the hope of a better world, the need to close wounds that we all have open at the same time: it is not only a barbarity of technique, is a necessary series to understand our present. Vital fiction to understand reality. As usual.