Let me propose a strategic assailment to the topic of violence in Spanish film through a tripartite maneuver. As a first and slow approach, I would like to make a panoramic exordium, a conjuring of sorts, in order to summon and assemble the larger cultural context of the stubborn inscription of violence in the national cinema. Second, and in an attempt to establish a symptomatic typicality and a proof of continuity, I focus on the trajectory of Rafael Azcona, a figure usually heralded as the “national screenwriter” and whose gargantuan work spans from the dictatorship years to the democratic period. Finally, I test my take on the issue by probing an apparent exceptionality: Tras el cristal (In a Glass Cage, 1986) by Agustí Villaronga, a movie from the democratic era that is exceedingly violent but that has been considered almost unanimously (the exception is Marsha Kinder) as a rarity, an eccentricity alien to any Spanish national tradition.

On one occasion, Walter Benjamin came to imagine a critical text made up entirely of quotations (62). Perhaps Benjamin was indulging in hyperbole, maybe to prevent a “paralysis of his intellect” or to avoid “becoming an idiot,” a warning Ortega y Gasset proffered to those who prefer not to exaggerate (Rebelión 236). Perhaps also the value of a critical enterprise ultimately rests on the selection, ordering, and organization of a series of passages from different texts. In any case, Benjamin's imaginary discourse could be an excellent blueprint for any pursuit to recreate a specific cultural context, even if the critic is too timid to carry it out completely.

“In Rosa's bar,” states the narrator of the novel Días contados, published by Juan Madrid in 1993, “the beer delivery guy finished his glass of water and went on with the story.” His audience is a group of habitual patrons, among whom we find Antonio, the photographer protagonist of the novel.