Basilio, the campaign adviser who stars in David Trueba's latest novel, works with the conviction that voters are like children who have no imagination and that the only future they are able to imagine is identical to the past. . Basilio's mission is to help his candidate connect with voters and one of the first contributions he makes is to instruct her in the fact that the electorate is not capable of answering complex or simple messages, it is only capable of to conceive what he has already lived. "Imagine for a second you were transposed into the karmic driven world of Earl. That's what they want to hear, "he said.
In my opinion, one of the successes of Alcarràs is the familiarity we feel to the spectators when Carla Simón presents us with all the life of the past. A life that for some is current, but many of us have lived only when we were little or through our grandparents or parents: the coexistence of different generations of the same family, the special relationship between grandparents and grandchildren, the happiness of playing in freedom and outdoors with siblings, cousins, parents and uncles… We are mesmerized by the masterful reunion that Simon proposes to us with that happy childhood, whether real or imagined.
I wonder if it is true that we can only imagine things from the past and if that means we are unable to think about a different future. Perhaps this would explain why, when we feel that things are going wrong for us, reactionary ideas and counter-discourses prevail. The guardians of the essences. Is it because of the difficulty we have in thinking about what we can do to make our lives (individual and collective) different, not the same as before? Why is it easier for us to see what we are losing than what we can build together?
Some argue that in order to make a good analysis of our society, it is important to have known different cultures. Moving away from concepts whose validity we take for granted. Opening the mind is a great antidote to nostalgia. It is those who have the ability to imagine new scenarios who move the threads of the world. This is what makes the difference between being nostalgic or visionary.
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