A shot and its reverse-shot, a vignette of two Military Police (Guardia Civil) shooting at the rising sun at the very end of Jose Luis Cuerda’s 1989 masterpiece Amanece que no es poco (in English translation, something like 'The sun rises, and that suffices'). As they shoot at the new-born sun, they yell '¡Mecagüen el Misterio!', the strongest - and most original - blasphemy ever invented in Spanish, approximately in English: 'I shit on the Holy Trinity!' This image-concept has always moved me with its force of synthesis and radicalism. This glorious scene signifies not only a country capable of killing and desecrating its most sacred gods at every moment, but also the very death of the most important and formally brilliant tradition of satiric comedy in the history of European cinema. Amanece functions as a sort of Unforgiven (1992) as it brings to a close this sub-genre, twenty years after its last great works – thus rendering Amanece an anachronism. Sadly, this entire tradition remains unknown to global cinephilia; it always seemed too difficult to understand abroad, due to its large component of national ritual. It all began in the mid-1950s as a reaction to the classic Italian comedies by Monicelli et al., but the early comedies of Luis García Berlanga, Marco Ferreri or Fernando Fernan Gómez – absolute masterworks – remain far superior to those Italian films. They don’t only connect to a tradition beginning with Goya, Valle-Inclán and Buñuel, but also define a new type of moving body and harsh character for the planete-cinéma. When will the time come for the world to look up and notice this shot-down shining star?