Have you already renewed your Filmin subscription?

I have seen Icarus: The Week in FlamesThe pro-Spanish documentary about the October 2019 protests in Barcelona has sparked outrage (a real firestorm on Twitter) from some fervent patriots who have called for a boycott of the Filmin platform, which is offering it until the 31st of this month. The documentary in question is so inept and laughable, so crude and tacky, that it's hard to believe anyone could be offended by such nonsense. Within Filmin's extensive and splendid catalog (a godsend for anyone who loves cinema, which I have no intention of giving up for anything, least of all for any patriotic appeal), Icarus: The Week in Flames It would fit, if at all, in the section dedicated to the most extravagant and outlandish B-movies, alongside the hilarious Troma productions and horror films with ketchup blood. The Trial of the Process, with Magistrate Marchena presiding over a blatantly dysfunctional court, was the cause of the Urquinaona riot, and it also marked the point at which the state's dirty secrets overflowed, still tainting everything today. But that's one thing, and quite another is a documentary that seems written and directed by the characters in... Martínez, the fascistI have no idea what this is doing among Filmin's releases this week, but given the platform's track record, I refuse to give it any more importance. In any case, read on. Mònica Planas's criticism of the pieceAnd you will find – as always – a sound analysis.

The attack on Filmin's Barcelona headquarters by cardboard cutout separatists (even the name, Nosaltres Sols, sounds like a joke) is an act of barbarism, of course, but above all, it's pure and simple imbecility. So too are the inflammatory comments on social media from the self-proclaimed guardians of the Catalan homeland. These kinds of furious reactions (even more so against a platform like Filmin, which champions Catalan more than any other) are an expression of impotence and short-sightedness proportional to the outrage provoked by the bullying, sycophantic, obsequious, and/or pedantic tone—sometimes all at once—of those who specialize in pointing out traitors and conspiracies.

Episodes like this reveal why the independence movement has lost ground in recent years, and why it will lose again every time it attempts anything significant: because it not only produces self-proclaimed saviors and charlatans (these types are everywhere), but also listens to them and gives them credence. This results in a stagnant, stale, outdated, and tense independence movement, one that's constantly on edge, stuck in an endless loop of whining and insults, barely scraping by one day tagging Filmin's headquarters and the next plastering an ice cream parlor with posters because an Argentinian waiter refuses to speak Catalan, and so immature and sterile that no one else cares or understands it. Meanwhile, Vox and the PP are creeping into the center ground, rushing to claim as their own the defense of the freedoms they hate and attack.