What region of Spain did this movie take place?
In the Republican South or East? But there was the town Carlists... so who knows.
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MovieChat Forums > Belle Epoque (1994) Discussion > What region of Spain did this movie take...
It's not clear where is located that village but I suppose it's some place between Madrid and La Coruña (Fernando mentions he is heading to La Coruña and Madrid is in the other direction), perhaps in the province of León.
The sign on the station is 'Arcos' so presumably everything took place in Arcos somewhere between Madrid and La Coruna. Arcos is 'rainbow' and there are quite a few places in Spain with 'Arcos' in the name (Arcos San Blas, Arcos de la Frontera, Arcos de las Salinas, etc) It probably is a ficticious place. The movie was filmed in Portugal.
sharePossibly not far from A Coruña, as it is now called, for are the songs the villagers sing in Galician rather than in Spanish?
shareYou are right that one geographic point mentioned is the fugitive's destination, La Coruña. A popular port-of-exit to the Americas at the time. The other geographic reference (aside from the daughters training in from Madrid) is the reason he is a fugitive, the premature Republican uprising at Jaca.
Jaca is in Huesca, Aragón, over by the French border. If he wanted to save his skin, you'd think he would have simply crossed the border into France and be done with it!
I believe that the story line has him escaping across some mythical (as noted above) lugar-de-Castilla-cuyo-nombre-no-quiero-recordar. That's because Castilla was the Spanish heartland for Unamuno and many others. It would have to be Northern Castile, or Castilla-León as it is now called. That also provides the couple of Northern Spanish references, such as the Carlists and (maybe, I don't remember) some singing in Galego or bagpipes.
It was filmed in Portugal, as noted in another post. That also causes dissonance, because I believe that the palm trees, the beautiful tiles in the mansion, and perhaps many other visuals would not match a Northern town of Castilla-León.