Octavio and Adela were both born on the same day, April 21st 1932, in a sleepy town of Central Spain. That the day the country “went to bed Monarchic and woke up Republican”, in reference to the date when the Second Spanish Republic acquired international recognition. Both births included severe complications and it was almost certain that Octavio’s mother Rosa (Carla Diaz) would die. Instead, fate claimed Adela’s mother. This is just the first twist of fate, in a movie constructed upon geometrical turns and calculated serendipities.
Such calculations are explicit, as the numerical film title suggests. Octavio and Adela eventually meet, fall in and out of love multiple times in their lives, as Spain’s turbulent history repeatedly drives them apart. Their personal stories twirl around each other, just the design of the eighth Arabic numeral – this is beautifully illustrated in the film’s opening and closing scene. The story is broken down in eight chronological chapters, each representing a period of Adela’s and Octavio’s life (in 1931, 1939, 1952, etc, until their 90th birthday in April 2021, just as Spain began vaccinating its citizens against Covid).
The Spanish Civil war is at its height in the second episode of the film, when the protagonists are aged eight. Octavio’s father is a proud fascist, at a time when people wore the accolade on their sleeve. Adela’s father was a Republican, also commonly known as a “Red”. In an interesting inversion, it isn’t the fascist that kills the enemy virtually in front of their family. Instead, it is Adela’s leftwing father that shoots Octavio’s Nationalist father while he’s teaching his son how to fish.
From the third episode on (and for the 70 remaining years of their lives), Octavio and Adela are played by the Javier Rey and Ana Rujas. Adela becomes a very beautiful and assertive woman, with an irresistible smile. Octavio is a timid a hesitant adult, who must carry the weight of a major regret for the rest of his life. Their paths keep crossing as Spain goes through Franco’s oppressive dictatorship and the democracy that follows. Major events take place in 1977 as Adolfo Suarez is about to be elected the country’s first prime minister, and in 1992, as the Iberian nation hosted the Barcelona Olympics, while also celebrating 500 years since Christopher Columbus “discovered” the Americas.
Despite the political topics, 8 is not an overtly political film. It never takes sides, painting characters on both ends of the political spectrum as naive and likeable. It shows politics as a divisive force. “Don’t discuss politics as you will never convince your opponent”, we are reliably told. Adela’s newfound feminist convictions (just as Spain is about to legalise abortion in the late 1970s) help to drive the narrative forward, yet they are never presented as a panacea. Instead of supporting fiery statements and ideologies, 66-year-old Basque director Julio Medem creates a colourful yet anodyne historical drama. This is nation riven by political allegiances, accidents and regrets.
Death too is a recurring topic, and it’s often blended with sex to explosive results. Adele’s use of a morning veil on her face during a sex scene reveals that the d- and the s-word are intimately connected. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the French call an orgasm “la petite mort” (“the little death”).
This is an aesthetically accomplished movie. The colours are indeed remarkable, as is the camerawork. The story starts in monochromatic sepia, black-and blue, conveying multiple emotions while also evoking an era long gone. This morphs into muted colours, and then into more vibrant hues. The takes are very long, with a steadicam firmly following multiple characters. The cuts are vaguely reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), with the camera closely approaching an object or a door, before moving seamlessly into the next reel. The action is interspersed by white pregnant pauses to the sound of tap dancing. Lucas Vidal’s highly Purcellian music score provides the film with extra vim and vigour. A Spanish rendition of the Ronettes’ Be My Baby inside a moving vehicle, combined with a gently swirling camera and Adela singing alone, is perhaps the film’s most moving scene.
Yet this is no tearjerker. The narrative devices are just too hyperbolical, the events wilfully stagey and the ending way too Shakespearean for that. The squeaky clean births, the mostly bloodless deaths, and the scarce old-age make-up reveal at a more freeform and dreamy film language, with little regard for realism. A pleasant, insightful and deeply symbolic film.
8 showed in the 3rd Mediterrane Film Festival, in Malta, when this piece was originally written. Also playing in San Sebastian.
