How and why did the Windsor Tower, one of the most iconic skyscrapers on the Madrid skyline, end up in ashes? Was it accident or sabotage? These and many other questions have tried to answer the creators of ‘The Curse of Windsor’ (complete in HBO Max from Sunday, the 12th, and premiered by DMAX in two batches, this Sunday and next), a four-episode docuseries that explores not only all the known details of the incident, but also the galaxy of theories and urban legends that almost two decades later continue to feed the collective imaginationour national pop culture.
Raul Calabria (director and screenwriter) and Victor Morilla (executive producer and responsible for the plot and development of the project) did not want to rule out anything or anyone, to stay with a single version. The series relies on testimonials from firefighters who participated in the extinction attempt (including the first to enter, JA Gomez Milara) and that they left the building before it collapsed; the journalists that they left everything to cover the case and that they have continued it; the experts that they investigated the causes of the fire; he lawyer who recorded the famous silhouettes appeared late at night, and even architects who designed the tower, but also a parapsychologist or psychologist conspiracy expert.
a colossus in flames
the night of February 12, 2005, an overwhelming image kept all of Spain in suspense: the Windsor Tower burned before our eyes. Uncomfortable echoes of the catastrophe of 9/11 and, without going so far geographically, the trauma of 11-M, which happened only a year before. “I remember looking in terror,” he says Marta Gonzalez Novo from Cadena Ser. “I remember the dust, I remember the smoke that there was… The first hours of the night were very sad.”
‘The Curse of the Windsor’ is actually quite funny. Not having had to regret deaths, “ethically you can afford the game,” says Calàbria. the game with an example of ‘true crime’ in which the victim is a building. And within this premise, a game of Cluedo with a singular board: “The AZCA financial complex, where the burning building, the BBVA headquarters or the Villarejo office come together in the same space”he adds to advance the broad scope of the case.
Everything continues to point to a poorly put out cigarette butt, a trash can fire, as the origin of the disaster. But the series reminds us why some won’t settle for that simple oversight as an explanation. Too many interesting elements in play. “This story allows us to reflect on a lot of things in the recent history of this country,” explains Morilla. “From a family of millionaires born in the Franco regime [los Reyzábal, dueños de un imperio inmobiliario cuya guinda era la torre Windsor] up to a alleged banking conspiracy [se teorizó sobre si el incendio fue provocado para eliminar documentos clave para una investigación en marcha sobre FG Valores, la sociedad de bolsa de Francisco González]going by a lot of paranoia and conspiracy, with ghosts included“.
Certain legends, such as the mysterious blue flames or that butron in the basement of the building, are questions for which ‘The Curse of Windsor’ has an answer. But for the silhouettes that appeared in a window at ungodly hours, when the building had already been completely evacuated, there is still no rational explanation. Who were they? How did they get in? Calàbria assures: “According to some expert, there was a version that those silhouettes had gotten hot, literal and metaphorical.” Morilla adds: “For a while, the hypothesis that they were reflexes of firefighters calmed public opinion, but in the end officially, at the judge level, it was denied that they were. And then what?”
Always Villarejo
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Defining ‘The Curse of Windsor’ as a documentary may be reductionist: this is a ‘thriller’ with a more twisted plot than any fictional attempt. Also a postmodern pop essay in which they intersect the multiverse of William James, the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, the ‘recovery’ of the 70s, some real ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘It smells like death in here’, the movie (to call it somehow) of Tuesday and Thirteen. In it, ex-commissioner Villarejo played Frankenstein, “the king of the sewers, the man who knows all the secrets, almost a supervillain”, in the journalist’s description (expert in conspiracy) Noel Ceballos.
For a time, Villarejo was considered the possible architect of the fire commissioned by BBVA, which according to a certain theory would have required the destruction of compromising information. Calàbria and Morilla came to speak with this ubiquitous man in dark plots. “At no time did he deny that he was related to the case,” says Calàbria. “The only thing he asked of us is to be able to participate ‘later’. But ‘later’ didn’t quite come.”