For a long time, Spanish films set in the Civil War abounded with the danger of reaching an overdose.
Normal.
It was the most important and terrifying thing that happened to this country in the 20th century.
And I imagine that movies will continue to be made forever and ever about the two world wars that fortunately the bad guys didn't win.
Unless the sinister moron Vladimir Putin insists on mounting the third.
If there is anyone left alive and movies continue to be made, that theme would be the protagonist in the future of cinema.
It would only be necessary to demand that they possess quality, that the spectators be moved by the narrative, the portrait and the stories about wars and the ancient barbarism they represent.
The especially sordid war that ETA waged against the oppressors of their supposed homeland took 900 people to the ground.
Some, just as responsible for massacring Euskadi as the numerous deaths and injuries from a bombing that had the irresponsible and evil idea of going shopping or for a walk in a Hipercor in Barcelona.
The strategic or blind savagery of ETA lasted 50 years.
We were all witnesses to that horror, we lived in fear and disgust, but those who were definitely left alone were the dead.
And theirs, their families, their friends, the people whom the deceased loved and for whom they felt loved.
It is not surprising that, once the monster has disappeared, numerous films, series and documentaries are being made about its long empire of terror.
And I admit that the extraordinary novel by Fernando Aramburu
Patria
and the exemplary adaptation of it in the form of a series created by Aitor Gabilondo have set the artistic bar very high for those who continue to talk about ETA.
Nothing was missing or superfluous in these devastating narratives about victims and executioners, directly or indirectly.
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The horror of ETA returns Ángeles González-Sinde to the cinema 14 years later
Angeles González-Sinde has been proposed in
El comensal
talk about the indelible scars and the tragic survival of someone whose father was kidnapped and murdered by ETA.
It adapts the novel by Gabriela Ybarra, which I have not read, but which I will, since it arouses my interest, although the film is disappointing.
The brutal story begins in 1977. An ETA commando breaks into the house of businessman Javier de Ybarra.
He is led away to the awed presence of his family.
They demand an overwhelming ransom to free him.
The children unnecessarily resort to banks to lend them that figure.
They don't get it.
They kill him.
Decades later, the eldest son of the dead man needs the protection of an escort, he is an introverted and sullen being, he does not talk about the past, cancer has massacred his wife, his daughter intuits that he is walled in silence because he was wounded perpetuity for the past.
The theme is strong.
The movie doesn't look like it to me.
It tries to speak subtly about feelings, to be intimate, without embellishments, but it seems lukewarm to me, I don't feel infected by this sentimental x-ray of hidden pain, it doesn't give me either cold or heat.
He alternates the present and the past with little success.
And at times I find it tedious.
It improves my attention when that excellent actress appears, classic, truthful, as of all life, called Adriana Ozores.
And I think she has a present and a future Susana Abaitua.
I discovered her on
Homeland
.
She is believable, she is expressive.
And she has a disturbing point.
The diner
Address: Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde.
Cast: Susana Abaitua, Ginés García Millán, Adriana Ozores, David Luque, Fernando Oyagüez.
Genre: drama.
Spain, 2022.
Duration: 100 minutes.
Premiere: May 27.
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