The series ‘Garcia!’ (2022) was presented at Sitges 2022 with two extraordinary episodes, before its premiere on HBO Max on October 28. The adaptation of the Spanish comic is a new commitment to the fantastic in Spain of the platform, after the good results of the first season of ’30 Coins’ by Álex de la Iglesia, who also presented a promising preview of its new chapters, with infernal visions and creatures close to ‘Hellraiser’.
The introduction to the character of the first two hours begins with a black and white flashback, in the purest style of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ (1989), which shows us a small adventure of a super agent and his partner fighting against a kind of mad Nazi doctor, to later see how that elegant and strong man is frozen in the 50’s in a secret lab below the Valley of the Fallen.
But the series is set in a hypothetical current Spain, shown as a divided country and on the verge of political chaos —as if it were a dystopia, ha—, when a kind of Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo disappears. Antonia is a young investigative journalist who accidentally bumps into Garcia, a perfect soldier with superhuman strength and programmed to obey orders without questioning them who wakes up after six decades frozen, finding himself disoriented and confused in a country that he finds completely changed.
Pulp fiction with political reading and risk
Basically the starting idea is as if the Roberto of ‘Roberto Alcazar y Pedrin‘ —a comic that even defines the character’s way of speaking—, was Captain America, and part of the charm of the series is seeing how a hero from the old world collides with the current one and learns to work together with the journalist, a detail also typical of ‘Superman’, being involved with her in a political conspiracy that threatens to end democracy in favor of a new and brutal dictatorship.
Although these ideas seem to come from these two classic comics, it also has a certain continuity with one of the greatest successes of science fiction on recent Spanish television, ‘El Ministerio del Tiempo’, with which it not only bears an organic resemblance due to its textures of comics, but they share the scriptwriter, Charles of Pandoalready an expert in characters from the Iberian past who encounter the vicissitudes of change in a country of which they have been the greatest defenders, in the case of the Rtve series, the distinguished Alonso de Entrerríos.
The presence of the same creators is not a fortuitous coincidence, since in both the complexity of two soldiers is delved into, in some way representatives of a more innocent and anachronistic way of seeing the homeland, who cause a moral disruption in the product itself. by becoming the protagonists, a form of get into the mud of gray scales that gives us a brave series As for his way of proposing a fiction that a simplistic gaze can easily read in a biased way. No doubt the analysis will come down to that in many cases.
But ‘Garcia!’ it fends off any malicious gaze with razor-sharp political humor and satire, despite its clear positioning for white humor and classic adventure-movie charm. Eugenio Mira’s direction for is exquisite and manages to imbue the kind sensations of the cinema of Steven Spielberg and Richard Donner in a pulp story that often reminds us of the charmingly naive tone of ‘Rocketeer’ or ‘Agent Carter’, tends towards a neat narrative, the clarity of the classics and vintage comic book sensibility.
An Apollonian Address
Sometimes the level of cleanliness is such that it is more cinematographic than series, raising the level of production beyond production values and leaving staging details that are not intended to do fancy stuff, but the timeless consistency and control of what we see on screenOh, as simple as it is. Thorough without giving the note, the director of the cult debut ‘The Birthday’ (2004) makes a show here of references without crushing winks, rather proposing a forgotten way of telling things, that of organic fluidity, not only scarce in homeland production, but in the universe of platforms.
A separate chapter deserves its two main actors, the phlegmatic Francisco Ortiz, who goes far beyond his resemblance to Mario Casas, with a hoarse and enveloping voice ideal for the character, and, above all, Veki Velilla. The actress is a small prodigy of spontaneity, a recognizable and adorable millenial disaster that always explodes with natural reactions, not only creating an unprecedented verisimilitude in this type of fantastic series, but also achieving a swift eloquence that takes us to the cinema of Howard Hawks and the comedy of characters and good dialogues, more than gags.
‘Garcia!’ is much more than a surprise that faithfully adapts its font by adding its own personality, it is an unheard-of gift in our country, which promises a season full of unhurried adventure and hyperbolic slapping action and lapidary phrases that demonstrate a work of mime that is not abundant in the torrents of weekly platform releases. Hopefully it will be received as it deserves and we will have much more of the “stale” superhero of Santiago García and Luis Bustos.