A country to eat. Identity and gastronomy in Bigas Luna’s cinema

Abstract

Bigas Luna was undoubtedly one of the most charismatic, original and brilliant filmmakers of contemporary Spanish cinema. Over nearly four decades of intense creative work where he combined his passion for painting with various film projects, the filmmaker built a cinematic universe where it was possible to distinguish some recurring themes. One of the most obvious and well-known is his insistence, almost obsessive, on relating eroticism and gastronomy in many of his films. However, less attention has been paid to the fact that there was a third, much less studied concept in this sex and food pairing, which is that of national identity. Thus, after living in the U.S., Bigas Luna began to craft an identity speech whose foundations were not political, but purely and joyfully gastronomic. The Iberian, the Mediterranean, the Spanish were represented in his movies using, as metaphors, some of the most typical dishes or foods of the national gastronomic tradition. In this way, paella, ham, omelette, olives or chorizo appear in his work as symbols that explain the roots of culture in the Iberian Peninsula.