EL PICO 2
(OVERDOSE 2)
dir. Eloy de la Iglesia, 1984
120 min. Spain.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, MAY 9 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 26 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14 – 7:30PM
TUESDAY, JUNE 27 – 10PM
“EL PICO 2 begins as Paco and his father move back to Madrid to live with the grandmother as the father seeks a detox treatment for his son. After an eyewitness implicates Paco in the murder of el Cojo and his wife, he is sent to prison. In the meantime, a journalist seeks to expose how Paco’s crime reveals a broader web of police corruption.”
— Tom Whittaker, The Spanish Quinqui Film, Delinquency, Sound, Sensation

Made on the heels of EL PICO’s success, Eloy de la Iglesia’s decision to return to his melodrama about a Francoist father and his heroin-addicted son sees him take a more critical approach toward examining the generational differences punctuated by the radical shift in political life that accompanied the end of Francoism. In taking the story from Bilbao to Madrid, De la Iglesia shifts the focus to Spain’s capital, getting to the root of the inefficient policy-making dictating the troubles of the transition. In tracking Paco’s attempts at leaving heroin behind, the audience becomes implicated in a history of carelessness that sees broken family connections reflected in greater government dysfunction.