Amenábar praises the power of imagination through a 'queer' Cervantes.

Long before writing Don Quixote, and after participating in a war between Christian and Muslim forces, Miguel de Cervantes was imprisoned in Algiers. Alejandro Amenábar uses this dark period in the novelist's life to place one biopic A fanciful story that, through a cunning and somewhat deceitful protagonist, emphasizes the magic of storytelling. And so, by telling stories, the character gives moments of escape to his fellow captives and at the same time wins the favor of his captor, as Scheherazade did in Arabian Nights.

The captive It seems like an example of auteur cinema that shares fears and desires with corporate audiovisuals: fear of boring the audience, of not stimulating them enough, of not making things clear enough, and the desire to connect emotionally, no matter the cost. In the director of Thesis He has often been dogged by a debate: Are we dealing with a sensitive or sentimental narrator? He seems to have taken up the challenge of this question himself (one character criticizes Cervantes for always trying to sugarcoat his stories), but at the same time, he decides to continue as usual, including sugary music. In the end, the director doesn't explain the past in a radically different or complex way, but he does provide interesting nuances and expansions. The result is potentially entertaining and moderately vindicative, but at the same time there's something generic, artificial about it that stops seeming convincing upon closer inspection.