The Portuguese Falcon

João Leitão's 2015 Portuguese film is a superhero parody set during the Salazar dictatorship. Captain Falcão is an ultra-patriotic figure taking orders directly from Salazar and fighting the red menace; the film presents him entirely straight, and the humour comes from that. The target of the parody is not the hero but the propaganda language of the period: colonial rhetoric, moral policing and the fear of communism are made ridiculous in their own words. Treating this era in this register caused argument in Portugal. The production deliberately looks cheap and imitates the television aesthetic of the sixties. The joke density is high and not all of them land. Who it's for: viewers interested in Portuguese history and political parody. Who it's not for: anyone without the historical context, or troubled by colonial-era rhetoric being repeated even as parody.