How it was proposed to include the 11-M attack in ‘All the times we fell in love’

Spanish fiction, whether on film or television, has portrayed historical events on many occasions, from the conquest of America, the Civil War, ETA terrorism or 23F, for example. However, the series ‘All the times we fell in love’ touches on an event that marked Spain, 11-M, but from a different perspective: It is not a story about 11-M as such, but the attack breaks into the plot as one more element. “It was a very risky decision and Netflix told me to go ahead with it. The series has no desire to be controversial and I hope no one is offended. It is not treated for that and it did scare me, but I wanted to be very respectful”, tells us Carlos Montero, creator of the most recent premiere among the Spanish Netflix series of 2023.

They show it to us in the first chapter of the series, after introducing us to Irene and Julio, the casting stars of ‘All the Times We Fall in Love’ played by Georgina Amorós and Franco Masini. Both of them, along with their friend Da, take a suburban train to return home after a night out. And just when Irene and Julio are about to kiss, a beam of light invades the carriage, followed by a loud explosion and chaos. “The 11M attack was, indeed, a bomb in the middle of the episode”, explains Mateo Gil, director of this episode, “It was risky because in the middle of a romantic comedy you have a very dramatic event, but I feel that the intention is to tell that in life not all the ingredients are those of a romantic comedybut reality gets in the way abruptly and forcefully”.

“It is not usually done much in Spain to put History into fiction, or not as much as in the United States, but we have to start doing it,” elaborates Carlos Montero, who, like Irene in fiction, already had the intention of writing about 11-M in a script. “For me it was a challenge to deal with a more or less recent tragedy. I keep it very much in mind. I remember that day in Madrid and the sadness that invaded us all for weeks. It is something that is very present in my life and at the time I wrote about it but I did not find the way because it was very close.. And that stayed there and this time it came out in a very natural way.”

About his intention to include the attack, he explains: “For me the great metaphor is that life always breaks into love, interrupts it, destroys it and you have to have the ability to overcome it or not. And it happens to the protagonists not only with 11M and that bomb but with many things. For them, the big factor is that Julio is going to be successful after chapter five and Irene is not. That will completely distort your relationship. And it happens with success and with other things. It seemed to me that the metaphor was there: you love him very much, he loves you very much, but then life insists that you cannot be together.

For Mateo Gil, the tragedy “is present in the rest of the series, but without determining it”and ensures that: “It is still a story of love and failure, but that is always there as a background to tell you: ‘reality is something else and you have to accept it’. It is a risky but very interesting move and it makes the series is a bit unique, for my taste”.

When watching a love story that takes place on one of the trains of the 11-M attack, it is possible that some viewers have come to mind the story of ‘Thursday’, the song that La Oreja de Van Gogh dedicated to the attack. We asked Carlos Montero if this was his inspiration: “Do you know that I discovered that this song exists later? If I get to know it, I won’t write this story. It was like: damn, there’s a song that tells the same thing, how strong “.