El arquetipo materno y la metáfora franquista de la nación sexuada en 'Furtivos' de José Luis Borau

Abstract

Made at the end of the francoist regime, at a time of political crossroads, Furtivos (1975), by José Luis Borau, stands as the spearhead of Spanish cinema during the Transition. The story exploits the conventions of rural drama to immerse us in a complex network of oedipal configurations exploring the dynamics of a forbidden incestuous desire within a single-parent family cell that is articulated as a political metaphor for the regime. Maternal-filial incest and oedipal violence appear in the story as symptoms of the breakdown of patriarchal authority, that is, as unmistakable signs of a moment of deep political uncertainty and confusion within the gender ideology of the dictatorship. In this context, this work delves into the construction of the maternal archetype embodied in the character of Martina, an archetype that perverts the gender ideals of the regime and is depicted as an aberrant distortion of the francoist metaphor of the sexed nation.