Del Lado Del Verano - Film Review

Spanish and Latin American Film Festival, Manchester.

Del Lado Del Verano is a Spanish film from the Canary Islands financed wholly or in part by governmental institutions.
It concerns a dysfunctional working class family. If the protagonists had been of African ethnicity the film would have been damned as racist.
It is supposed to be funny, but there is little kindness in the film.
For a film to be funny we have to be able to identify with the characters to some extent, to recognise our own actions in the ridiculous behaviour of others.
Otherwise it is nothing more than cruel posturing, self righteous mockery and nasty stereotyping.
Del Lado del Verano is nothing more than a hate film by the Authority Thought Police directing their contempt at the indigenous peasantry.
There is little empathy for any of the characters, except the two gay boys and the girl who studies at university, hoping for a better life in Australia, away from her dreadful family.
The rest of the characters are held up to ridicule for the their bigotry and grotesque behaviour.
The characters are shown up to be manipulative, racist, homophobic, dishonest and hypocritical.
As usual, Those Who Know Better are projecting their own crimes upon their victims, whilst proclaiming their own superiority.
The film is an excuse for the ideologically pure to have a right good sneer at the peasantry.
It is 'gay' in the sense that it is naff, and  'gay' because there are an extraordinary amount of homosexuals in the story.
From Spanish cinema and television you would think the world is being overrun by homosexuals.
Some people are gay, let them get on with their lives, get over it.
The film is a Eurosoviet propaganda exercise, and all the more wearisome for it.
The characters are portrayed as drunks, drug dealers, adulterers and so on.
Hard working folk, sticking together in hard times, they definitely are not.
If it provides the Guardianistas a chance to sneer, an opportunity for the overseer class to dehumanize their prey, all well and good, but as far as your humble Peasant is concerned Del Lado del Verano is nothing but poisonous prejudiced horse manure.