Reality And Narration
by Pedro Almodovar
It sometimes happens that when you’re hard at work making fiction, you get invaded by the feeling that what’s important is happening elsewhere — something much more powerful than the story that you have been creating, with care and obsession. Human beings today need their daily dose of fiction, it’s true; without it, we would not know how to live. But it is also true that, on many occasions, the rumblings of reality that come across our TVs and computer screens are so powerful that they knock the air out of you and leave you with the feeling that a film is something insignificant in comparison.
That’s what happened to me on Tuesday, while I was working, an impressive tsunami of citizens at Neptuno Square howled for their right to dissent with the politicians who claim to represent them, as they were in session in Congress. The cries of this human tide, encircled and at times beaten and dragged by the 1,300 strong riot police at Neptuno Square, covered the front pages of newspapers around the world. Yet they have not managed to catch the attention of [Prime Minister] Mariano Rajoy in New York. During his address to the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, Rajoy turned to his habit of editing reality according to his whim, thanking the “silent majority of Spaniards who didn’t protest.”
Mr. Rajoy, I am part of that silent majority who didn’t protest on September 25th, and I’m imploring you not to distort or appropriate my silence.
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