Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Urban Avatars of “El Maligno”: Sacredness in Álex de la Iglesia’s El día de la bestia and Manuel Martín Cuenca’s Caníbal

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Sacred and Modernity in Urban Spain

Part of the book series: Hispanic Urban Studies ((HUS))

Abstract

El día de la Bestia and Caníbal are horror films that problematize distinctions between modernity and the sacred. In El día de la Bestia, the KIO Towers embody the push of global contemporary capital toward a flat world beyond the end of history, a realm of extreme abstraction and erased materiality. The film offers an image of a Madrid on the verge of resacralization under the sign of transcendental catastrophe and the End. In Caníbal, a serial killer shows no sacrificial excess in his murders, and turns his victims into indistinguishable packages of meat. However, premodern sacrificial practices and modern avatars of sacred excess are never fully erased, and the city becomes a space haunted by repressed sacredness.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Agamben, Giorgio. Profanations. Trans. Jeff Fort. New York: Zone Books, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Avramescu, Cǎtǎlin. An Intellectual History of Cannibalism. Trans. Alistair Ian Blyth. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnier, Martin. “The Sound of Fear in Recent Spanish Films.” MSMI 4.2 (Autumn 2010): 197–211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, Walter. “Capitalism as Religion.” The Frankfurt School on Religion. Key Writings by the Major Thinkers. Ed. Eduardo Mendieta. New York: Routledge, 2005. 259–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, Jennifer. Cannibalism in Literature and Film. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buse, Peter, Núria Triana Toribio, and Andy Willis. The Cinema of Álex de la Iglesia. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2007.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Caníbal. Dir. Manuel Martín Cuenca. Film Factory Entertainment, 2014. DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  • Compitello, Malcolm Alan. “From Planning to Design: The Culture of Flexible Accumulation in Post-Cambio Madrid.” Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 3 (1999): 199–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Critchley, Simon. The Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Theology. New York: Verso, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. Acts of Religion. Ed. Gil Anidjar. New York: Routledge, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  • El día de la bestia. Dir. Álex de la Iglesia. Prod. Sogetel/Iberoamericana Films Producción/MG Srl/Canal+España/Sogepaq, 1995. DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Egea, Juan F. Dark Laughter: Spanish Film, Comedy, and the Nation. Madison: The U of Wisconsin P, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernández de Alba, Francisco. “El día de la bestia: Recasting Madrid.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 85.2 (2008): 33–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, Benjamin. Antonio López Garcías’s Everyday Urban Worlds. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, David. Spaces of Hope. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, Heike. “Cannibalistic Delights: Human Consumption in Contemporary German Literature.” The Journal of Popular Culture 46.4 (2013): 831–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogle, Jerrold E. “Modernity and the Proliferation of the Gothic.” Introduction. The Cambridge Companion to the New Gothic. Ed. Hogle. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014. 3–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, Jonathan. “Cannibal (Canibal): Toronto Review.” Hollywood Reporter 7 Sept. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. New York: Verso, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement. Trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kavka, Misha. “The Gothic on Screen.” The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Ed. Jerrold E. Hogle. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. 209–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kinder, Marsha. “Refiguring Socialist Spain: An Introduction.” Introduction. Refiguring Spain Cinema/Media/Representation. Ed. Kinder. Durham: Duke UP, 1997. 1–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, Susan. “Director Manuel Martín Cuenca Finesses a Taboo Subject in Cannibal.” Los Angeles Times. 24 Jun. 2014. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klinger, Barbara. “The Art Film, Affect and the Female Viewer: The Piano Revisited.” Screen 28.1 (Spring 2006): 19–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Labrador Méndez, Germán. “The Cannibal Wave: The Cultural Logic of Spain’s Temporality of Crisis (Revolution, Biopolitics, Hunger and Memory).” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 15.1–2 (2014): 241–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lázaro-Reboll, Antonio. Spanish Horror Film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre, Henri. State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Ed. Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden. Trans. Gerald Moore, Neil Brenner, and Stuart Elden. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. The Urban Revolution. Trans. Robert Bononno. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Writings on Cities. Trans. and ed. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre, Martin. “The Figure of the Serial Killer as Cannibal in the Age of Capitalism.” Theory, Culture & Society 22.3 (2005): 43–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Tristes Tropiques. Trans. John and Doreen Weightman. New York: Penguin, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martín-Cabrera, Luis. “Nuevas representaciones culturales en la España postolímpica: El día de la bestia de Alex de la Iglesia.” Convergencias Hispánicas: Selected Proceedings and Other Essays on Spanish and Latin American Literature, Film, and Linguistics. Ed. Elizabeth Scarlett and Howard B. Wescott. Newark: Juan de la Cuesta, 2001. 79–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moreiras-Menor, Cristina. Estela en el tiempo: Imagen e historicidad en el cine español contemporáneo. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfaller, Robert. On the Pleasure Principle in Culture: Illusions without Wonder. Trans. Lisa Rosenblatt, Charlotte Eckler, and Camilla Nielsen. New York: Verso, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. The Intervals of Cinema. Trans. John Howe. London: Verso, 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  • Resina, Joan Ramon. “The Concept of the After-Image and the Scopic Apprehension of the City.” After-Images of the City. Ed. Resina and Dieter Ingenschay. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2003. 1–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, Nathan. “The Devil in the Details: Urban Space and the Persistence of the Sacred in El día de la bestia.” Capital Inscriptions: Essays on Hispanic Literature, Film and Urban Space in Honor of Malcom Alan Compitello. Ed. Benjamin Fraser. Newark: Juan de la Cuesta, 2012. 319–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, David. “Toward a Theory of Terror.” boundary 2 41.3 (2014): 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Short, Sue. Fairy Tale and Film: Old Tales with a New Spin. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zipes, Jack. Grimm Legacies: The Magic Spell of the Grimm’s Folk and Fairy Tales. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2015.

    Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj. “Answers to Today’s Crisis: A Leninist View.” Crisis & Critique 1.3 (2014): 13–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. London: Verso, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Manhattan College, New York, NY, USA

    Antonio Cordoba

Authors
  1. Antonio Cordoba
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Manhattan College , Riverdale, New York, USA

    Antonio Cordoba

  2. Catholic University of America, USA , Washington, DC, District of Columbia, USA

    Daniel García-Donoso

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Cordoba, A. (2016). Urban Avatars of “El Maligno”: Sacredness in Álex de la Iglesia’s El día de la bestia and Manuel Martín Cuenca’s Caníbal . In: Cordoba, A., García-Donoso, D. (eds) The Sacred and Modernity in Urban Spain. Hispanic Urban Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60020-2_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60020-2_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-60071-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-60020-2

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation