26/09/2025 - Alberto Rodríguez revisits the challenges Spain's fledgling democracy faced, through the three key figures of the time who directly witnessed the 1981 coup d'état

The Anatomy of a Moment is the title of Javier Cercas’s excellent book which, based on the attempted coup d'état in Spain on 23 February 1981, retraces the lives of three prominent figures during those years of great political tension and those who orchestrated the attack on Spain’s fledgling democracy. Now, Seville-based filmmaker Alberto Rodríguez (also present in Donostia with Los Tigres [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) brings The Anatomy of a Moment to the 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival, a series adapted from the book of the same title and a similar structure, and screened in the official section out of competition.

The original Movistar Plus+ series is once again a clear example (alongside titles such as The Plague [+see also:
interview: Alberto Rodríguez and Rafae…
series profile], also directed by Rodríguez, Riot Police [+see also:
series review
interview: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
series profile] and La Mesías [+see also:
series review
trailer
series profile]) of the Spanish platform’s productive power. It has spared no expense in setting the scene and, thanks to the miracles of makeup and hairstyling (courtesy of Yolanda Piña), transforming its actors into authentic replicas of the real-life protagonists. An unrecognisable, clean-shaven Álvaro Morte delivers the finest performance of his career, perfectly capturing the movie-star smile of President Adolfo Suárez; recent National Film Award winner Eduard Fernández smokes and surveys the world and its inhabitants through his glasses with the same insight as communist leader Santiago Carrillo; and an enormous Manolo Solo—the central figure in the strongest of the four episodes—inhabits the soul and divided heart of Captain General (and Vice President) Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado.

They are joined by Miki Esparbé, imitating the slightly nasal tone of King Juan Carlos I, and David Lorente, sporting a moustache, tricorn hat, and pistol like coup leader Antonio Tejero, who was aided by military officers Jaime Milans del Bosch (played by Óscar de la Fuente) and Alfonso Armada (Juanma Navas) in riddling the ceiling of the Spanish Parliament with bullets.

With a script by Rafael Cobos (the director's artistic brother), Fran Araújo, and Rodríguez himself, the series opens by recreating that ill-fated coup d'état of 1981, and closes with the subsequent trial of those responsible. In between, unfolding at a frenetic pace and with meticulous staging and attention to detail, is a web of scheming, conspiracies and conversations aimed at aborting Spanish democracy before it could develop with all the guarantees it required.

The series becomes a tense thriller, in which the only thing truly at risk is the newly born freedom of the Spanish people. A crucial moment in the country’s history, hitherto unexamined with such nerve, energy and foresight, highlighting how difficult it was—and there are still repercussions to be resolved from that transition—for progressive ideas to coexist with the privileges of Franco’s loyalists. These forces kept Spain oppressed under a dictatorship that was hard to fully escape, as this fiction—based on real events—sets out to dissect.

The Anatomy of a Moment is a Movistar Plus+ and DLO Producciones series (premiering on 20 November), in partnership with ARTE France. Its sales are managed by Movistar Plus+ International.

(Translated from Spanish)