The Captain’s Feast establishes the nature of the fascist ruling class in rural Spain and the attitudes and values of Captain Vidal, the villain in the film. The feast is a scene of indulgence, greed and power. Vidal is a fascist brute, he is proud of his reputation and dominates the scene. The guests are hypocrites and prove to be arrogant, callous & heartless. Carmen, seems out of place and is represented as fragile, elegant, cowed and intimidated by the other guests, we also get the impression that Vidal views her with contempt.
In this scene we see the use of mise en scene through lighting. During the scene we see how in the background there is low key lighting being used. However the table is shown with high key lighting. This exemplifies that whoever is having this feast is important, and the captain wants to exploit his influence and his dominance, as he is sat at the very end of the table signifying how assertive he is.