The Rocket from Calabuch
The story of a man who wants to get away from it all; or, of a stranger who comes to town. The film woozily centers on Professor Jorge Serra Hamilton, world-famous rocket scientist, played by Edmund Gwenn i.e. Kris Kringle from Miracle on 34th Street. The presence of Santa Claus in a sun-dappled pastoral produced in Francoist Spain is a clue perhaps to the degree of whimsy (or is it misdirection?) that is going to be on offer.
Jorge, as he is referred to throughout, is on the lam. Exactly why is never said, but we can deduce that he is fed up with the strife of the world and the stridency of his profession, and desires peace and perhaps also calm. Apparently his rocketry skills are important enough to the order of things that there is a global APB on him, and so he arrives at the remote, seaside Spanish town of Calabuch to hide out. Why Calabuch? Who knows? When first meeting the inhabitants he tries to speak to them in Latin. Since there is something angelic about Jorge (indicated by the fact that he has both the wisdom and the humility to buckle his belt above rather than below his paunch), we can imagine him dropped perhaps from the midst of some heavenly war, his rocketry not altogether earthly. But he is swiftly adopted by the villagers of Calabuch, in particular by a man named Lobster, a trumpeter and smuggler who lives comfortably in the town jail, and whose snug quarters Jorge comes to share.
This all happens quickly, and then the plot stops. We are given scenes of village life, well etched. Particularly touching are a traveling matador and his gentle bull, who face each other grudgingly in a match carried out on the beach, and partially in the surf. The bull is prone to catching colds; the matador is solicitous. Less endeared of each other are the town’s lighthouse keeper and its priest, who clash over a game of chess. The priest is first introduced to us in a shot worthy of Wes Anderson, ensconced behind a desk piled with attractive documents, and backed by an elaborate church mural. And so the whole town is picturesque, weathered and jumbled, stylishly lived in until every detail is telling.
Calabuch is one of the early films of Luis Garcia Berlanga, who spent his career mostly at the edge of what Spain would allow to be filmed and shown under Franco. Apparently he was subtle in saying what he wanted to say. In Calabuch there is little that is political, aside of course from Jorge’s withdrawal into pacifism. The authorities are represented by Matias, the town’s chief of police, who is hot-headed, but not necessarily unwise or ungenerous. He shoots at a smuggler, then apologizes for coming so close to hitting him. He at first suspects Jorge of deviancy, but later becomes a supporter and defender. Yet there is another side to Matias. He is the jealous father of a young woman, and when he catches her wearing perfume he forces her head into a bowl of water and threatens to kill her. Thus perhaps a viewer with a less traditionalist bent will be able to perceive Matias as in fact very far from a benign despot.
The perfume scene is shockingly abrupt. We see the daughter secretly apply a dab behind each ear; the door rings; she opens it on the postman; Matias joins them; the postman’s nostrils twitch and he declares “Channel Number 5”. A swift edit later we see the daughter gasping for air as her face comes up out of the water. Berlanga keeps his camera nimble; earlier during a bit of repartee it swings between the participants with an exaggerated deference to their wit. The camera is a wiseguy, and maybe not so sympathetic to all the picaresque going-ons as we the audience – being less familiar – are.
The plot starts up again when Jorge decides to help the people of Calabuch to win a local fireworks competition. And here is the thing: The Rocket from Calabuch is a hidden talent story. The hidden talent story is a powerful story of wish fulfilment. We all yearn after all to be underestimated. When the unwashed cowboy brushes his fingers across his revolver’s mother-of-pearl grip; when the undercover spy readies a bit of deadly karate; when the prince in his role as pauper is about to through off his rags – we thrill to it vicariously. Jorge’s hidden talent is… rocketry, and the film contorts itself amusingly around this fact. What can he do with his rocketry genius? When he visits the local bar and goes to line up a shot at the pool table we perk up a little – maybe rocketry is a little like pool? Maybe he is also a genius at pool? But after some bluster he only scratches the felt. No, what is needed for the rocketeer to show off his rocketry is rockets, and thus the handy existence of a fireworks competition. But even this is treated a little obliquely. Once he devotes himself to helping with the contest Jorge begins to scrawl complex math equations over every available surface, which seems a little… unnecessary? But through this mathematical ferment he is able to design a rocket which spells out, with its starburst, C-A-L-A-B-U-C-H, and the contest is won.
The townspeople rejoice in their great firework victory, even going so far as to publish Jorge’s picture in the local paper. This attracts the attention of the world’s militaries, and despite a brief resolution to fight on behalf of their adopted citizen, the people of Calabuch are waved off by Jorge himself, who, resigned, accepts his reabsorption into the military-industrial complex. As he is flown away to bigger and better things he claims that the rocket he launched in Calabuch will be his last. He ascend angelically. The village is left below in all of its detail.
