THE CAPTIVE

Synopsis

A lavish 16th-century epic shot through with erotic energy, The Captive is a retelling of the Don Quixote author’s real-life captivity in Algiers. An alternatingly cruel and alluring place where Miguel de Cervantes finds himself enriching a rich governor with tall tales and, perhaps, something even more sensational. Captured by pirates after battling the Turks, Cervantes (a tantalizing Julio Peña) is faced with the prejudices of Christian compatriots and the openness of Moorish overlords, pressed to decide where his faith lies as, one by one, those around him are put to death. Cervantes’ name is sullied by “past sins,” a fact that intrigues the openly queer bey (Alessandro Borghi), who literally holds his life in his hands. Thrust into an Arabian Nights-like scenario, Cervantes stays in the bey’s good graces by reading him stories and spinning his own yarn about undying love across cultural boundaries. Is Cervantes falling for his captor, for the bustling market town where corsairs stroll the streets with their young boys “like it’s nothing”? Moreover, drawn by dreams of the blanched white windmills of his La Mancha home, which does he ultimately favour: comfort or freedom?

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