Nostalgia and/as loose causality in Belle Époque and La lengua de las mariposas

Belle Époque (Trueba, 1992) and La lengua de las mariposas (Cuerda, 1999) offer a nostalgic representation of a specific Spanish past, the Second Republic. This period is rendered as an ahistorical, quasi-bucolic and freer time when sexual and/or cognitive desire circulated with fewer restrictions. In addition, in these two films, nostalgia is not only a set of topics or an emotional tone, but also (and above all) a narrative structure based on a semi-disjointed episodicity. The success of this episodic approach to the idealized scenario of the Second Republic cannot be properly understood without paying attention (and in contrast) to the type of films that a young generation of directors popularized in the 1990s. These film-makers emphasized tight causal plots and a thematic interest in pan-European, late-capitalist tribulations, such as commodification, lack of authenticity, delusion and social marginalization. In this context, Belle Époque and La lengua de las mariposas re-imagine a different, looser and less constrained experience of time and temporal succession.