If you want to learn something about the Spanish Civil War and about all the political details and intrigues, let me tell you, you've chosen the wrong film.
This is a vision of the war as it happened in Majorca, a small island off the coast of Spain. When a war like this happens in a small island that takes position for the traitor almost at once, there is no war in the open. The soldiers are sent to the front to fight, in the mainland, while another kind of war happens at home, on the small island. There, neighbours tell on other neighbours, sometimes because their political views are contrary to the new regime, but many people are told on because of old family fights, or maybe the silent introvert who has no friends is told on by someone who wants to "earn some points". And these things don't happen in the open. There were some trials, true, but many other times people would just be woken up in the middle of the night, taken out of their homes to the closest cemetery where they would be killed. And the next morning the bodies would be found, and people would have an idea of what had happened, but nobody would dare to speak or to do anything. We're not talking about soldiers killing someone they had never seen in their life. We're talking about people killing their neighbours, and probably saying hello to their widow the next day, and even attending the funeral for the guy they had killed. We're talking about villages with one or two thousand inhabitants, where everybody knew everybody.
I am from that small island and I've heard the stories my grandparents told me, and I must say that this film upset me, oh yes, it did; but I also found it remarkably beautiful and moving. The initial violence is not something the director or the writer made up, that's how things happened during that war. A kid knowing that his mate's dad is in the fascist squad that killed his dad? Completely possible. All that happened later on? Possible too. TB was real too. At that time my island was not the holiday resort it has become. People were poor, illiterate, and worked in small farms. After the war there were times of hardship.
So, you won't find a war story in this film, or at least not the kind of war story you expect. There are no battlefields, no soldiers, no political intrigues. This is the meanest kind of war, which happens when the space is limited (just check the size of the island), when neighbours fight with their neighbours, when members of the same family fight each other, and they live in a place where everybody knows everybody. You'll find a story about the damage that this particular kind of war can cause to people and the story of how they survive that damage, or maybe they don't.
I must mention the excellent work done by the writers who adapted the novel and by all the actors, who managed to sound really Majorcan. That was remarkable.
This is a vision of the war as it happened in Majorca, a small island off the coast of Spain. When a war like this happens in a small island that takes position for the traitor almost at once, there is no war in the open. The soldiers are sent to the front to fight, in the mainland, while another kind of war happens at home, on the small island. There, neighbours tell on other neighbours, sometimes because their political views are contrary to the new regime, but many people are told on because of old family fights, or maybe the silent introvert who has no friends is told on by someone who wants to "earn some points". And these things don't happen in the open. There were some trials, true, but many other times people would just be woken up in the middle of the night, taken out of their homes to the closest cemetery where they would be killed. And the next morning the bodies would be found, and people would have an idea of what had happened, but nobody would dare to speak or to do anything. We're not talking about soldiers killing someone they had never seen in their life. We're talking about people killing their neighbours, and probably saying hello to their widow the next day, and even attending the funeral for the guy they had killed. We're talking about villages with one or two thousand inhabitants, where everybody knew everybody.
I am from that small island and I've heard the stories my grandparents told me, and I must say that this film upset me, oh yes, it did; but I also found it remarkably beautiful and moving. The initial violence is not something the director or the writer made up, that's how things happened during that war. A kid knowing that his mate's dad is in the fascist squad that killed his dad? Completely possible. All that happened later on? Possible too. TB was real too. At that time my island was not the holiday resort it has become. People were poor, illiterate, and worked in small farms. After the war there were times of hardship.
So, you won't find a war story in this film, or at least not the kind of war story you expect. There are no battlefields, no soldiers, no political intrigues. This is the meanest kind of war, which happens when the space is limited (just check the size of the island), when neighbours fight with their neighbours, when members of the same family fight each other, and they live in a place where everybody knows everybody. You'll find a story about the damage that this particular kind of war can cause to people and the story of how they survive that damage, or maybe they don't.
I must mention the excellent work done by the writers who adapted the novel and by all the actors, who managed to sound really Majorcan. That was remarkable.