La série catalane Ventdelplà, entre réalisme et utopie

Abstract

The series Ventdelplà (TV3, 2005–2010) bears the name of the imaginary village in which the majority of the action takes place: Teresa, the protagonist, flees Barcelona and her abusive husband to take refuge in the home of her ancestors in the heart of the Girona countryside. The first episodes of the series portray a clear bipolorization of the space: Teresa leaves the bustle and noise of the big city behind her, a violent husband, superficial friends, and integrates bit by bit into the population of Ventdelplà, among farmers, gossips, and notable locals. But the image of the locus amoenus drawn by the first shots of Ventdelplà quickly reveals itself to be an illusion: the little peaceful village is not spared the blights of contemporary society; on the other hand, the rural framework permits the exploration of other problems, like environmental preservation or the difficulties met by today’s farmers. Ventdelplà forms a continuity with fictional production anterior to TV3, marked by the pursuit of realism and authenticity; it shows another face of the Catalonia of today, a face that its creators hold to be as “true” as that of Barcelona, which was the setting of Poblenou and El cor de la cuitat, but that show itself to be as just as unrealistic from a political point of view. In reality, Ventdelplà, following the example of the majority of Catalan shows broadcasted until now, portrays a Catalonia with an affirmed and unquestioned identity, uniformly catalanophone, and whose existence as a nation appears self evident. Additionally, the series takes place explicitly in place that can be identified as real; the fact that the majority of the action occurs in an imaginary village merits questioning: whether Ventdelplà a sort of linguistic, cultural, and political Utopia?

Keywords

• Ventdelplà
• Catalonia
• utopia