Javier Aranda Luna: Pardavé between Porfirian nostalgia and migrations

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the world of fantasy, determined, intense, enviable, tenderly reactionary, languid and Porfirian longing, to use the terms of Jorge Ayala Blanco, is condensed in the film In the Times of Don Porfirio, by Juan Bustillo Oro.

This is the film that inaugurates what was called Porfirian nostalgia , whose echoes still vibrate at times in these times of transformation, which have not stopped dreaming of the long dresses and crowns, the swords and kepis of yesteryear. Times when God was omnipotent / and Mr. Porfirio President / Times, alas! so similar to the present , as the poet Renato Leduc sang in his famous corrido.

Ayala Blanco reminds us in The Adventure of Mexican Cinema that when the United States needed a legendary past, it invented the western, and when Avilacamachoism required the exaltation of a legendary past , it recirculated the idealized effigy of General Díaz through the hemophiliac blood of the dictatorship, reviving the dusty examples of the time .

And the actor who epitomized that Porfirian longing like no other was a brilliant comedian: Joaquín Pardavé.

If In the Times of Don Porfirio was the longest-running film of its time at 160 minutes, Oh, What Times, Mr. Don Simón!, starring Pardavé, was a box office hit: its opening grossed 17,000 pesos, surpassing any other film released until then. The dialogue was contributed by a poet, Neftalí Beltrán.

July 20th marked the 70th anniversary of Joaquín Pardavé's death. If we go by the YouTube accounts of ¡Ay, qué tiempos, señor don Simón!; En tiempos de don Porfirio; México de mis recuerdos (Mexico of My Memories), El baisano Jalil (The Baisano Jalil), and El gran Makakikus (The Great Makakikus), Pardavé is more alive than ever: he's an actor with millions of viewers.

The son of zarzuela actors, he was introduced to the stagecraft from a young age. Perhaps because of this combination of acting and music, he was not only an actor but also a renowned composer. One of his songs, "Negra consentida," is still heard in several regions of the country and has survived the avalanche of corridos tumbados, reggaeton, and other rhythms.

A railway telegraph operator at Paredón station, he joined his uncle Carlos's zarzuela group and later Josué Campillo's. He debuted in La banda de las trompetas and had a role in the film Jalisco nunca pierde. But it was in México de mis recuerdos that he won a place among audiences with his role as Susanito Peñafiel y Somellera.

In a country where comedy has historically been prevalent, staying in the audience's good graces among so many comedians is a challenge. Why has Pardavé endured?

For film critic Antonio Valdés, his acting career was characterized by three main themes: Porfirian nostalgia, family comedy, and migrant comedy. Three themes that have not lost their relevance. Also important to his longevity, I think, is his adaptability. He performed in revue theater, film, radio, and television, and also dabbled in musical composition. A very well-rounded actor who, although he didn't focus on a character like Cantinflas, touched upon current events with humor, in a variety of ways.

Jorge Ayala Blanco puts it well: cinema, a fanatic of experience, a piercing artifice, postulates its own responsibility for form: it watches with a fascinated gaze as a prehistoric civilization declines, a civilization that was never completely ours, and it witnesses the emergence of a new, lucid, and available man, whom we will never be. Cinema is the place where dissent is sacrificed .