Icíar Bollaín wins a risky bet with 'Maixabel'

I have respect for the personality and intelligence of Icíar Bollaín.

As an actress, I was disturbed and fell in love when I was a kid with her performance in

As a director, I was very interested in the powerful and compelling dramas of

and

But not in other films of fervid progressive and feminist militancy that I found as predictable as forgettable.

Knowing

argument

he had the feeling that Bollaín had gotten into very rough territory, very hard, in a story full of problems to reach a safe harbor.

It reconstructed a real and unusual event, which was the meeting, the mutual explanations, the need for forgiveness and the possibility of redemption between a woman whose husband was murdered many years ago by an ETA commando and one of her husband's executioners.

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• 'Maixabel', the “necessary” film for the Basque Country

Many people's hair stood on end, we were dumbfounded or scrambled, when we were informed that this had happened in real life. But transferring it to the cinema, making it credible, getting the viewer to understand it, admitting the reasons for both and the complexity of that moment, transmitting emotion and pity, fleeing from preconceptions, was a very difficult task, on the edge of the precipice or the edge. imposture all the time. But Icíar Bollaín has succeeded.

It's a good movie.

And it contains a prodigiously constructed sequence.

It is the cathartic conversation of the eternal victim and the repentant and tortured executioner in jail.

Everything is endowed with authentic art, with an admirable expressiveness.

The looks, the silences, the dialogues, the voices, the tone, what it expresses and what it suggests, the mixture of strong feelings, the eminent interpretation of Blanca Portillo and Luis Tosar, in my case they manage to put a knot on me in the throat and make my eyes get wet.

They are sensations that I have missed for a long time, which I am grateful for.

Running away from the preconceived was a very difficult task, on the edge of the precipice or imposture all the time.

But Icíar Bollaín has achieved it

And although I do not believe in the face of certain atrocities, before crimes committed with a cool head, that in time remorse may appear in the murderer, I would not be able to hear or forgive the one who took mine and destroyed my existence in perpetuity, I think it's very good that the cinema can convince me for a while that this can happen miraculously.

And I admire that lady, I observe her confusion, her generosity, her inner hell, the urgent reasons of her heart and brain to hear the explanations of the ancient monster that screwed up her life and that of her daughter.

Icíar Bollaín keeps me attentive for a couple of hours with his narration of this dark story.

And at some point, it touches me.

None of this happens to me with the English film

signed by Terence Davies, a man who has considerable prestige at film festivals. I clarify, only in these temples of supposedly transcendent cinema. Its lyrical world and the tedious way of expressing it bores me a lot. Here he focuses on the poet Siegfried Sassoon, his protest at the endless world war of 14, his internment in a mental clinic, the stormy succession of his boyfriends and lovers, his wedding to a woman, his indelible memories of war horror. Everything is affected to me, empty, with dialogues determined all the time to be brilliant and biting, with a gallery of sophisticated characters that make me angry. And I can't wait for this intense theater to end. Also due to renal urgency.

When the movie ends, I intend to leave the room. A diligent usher, I imagine following strict orders, prevents me. It ensures that the films are not finished until the last credit title appears. And these last a ton. I arrogantly explain that for me movies end when I decide to. It's a crazy discussion. And it catches a surreal aroma when he demands: "Then look for a film critic and he will explain that the films do not end until all the credit titles have come out." I will ask the critics about such a scientific question. And my bladder screaming. What weirder things happen in the pandemic.