Blutzeugen

Reading some of the comments about this truly awful and pathetic piece of fascist apology, I was considerably shocked.

'Raza', written by the dictator Franco himself, is nearly a Freudian reconstruction of the Franco family history mixed with a really difficult to stand glorification of the fascist, falangist version, symbolism. Nevertheless, one has to admit that the screenplay has splendid, unintentionated, humor moments (the comments about the almogaveres are really one of those moments to be present in any compilation of absurdities).

Even recognizing that Saenz de Heredia was a good director, in the technical way of speaking, he was not Leni Riefenstahl. More than sixty years later this film just can be look as an interesting piece of archelogy.

Have you ever seen a Commmunist movie? Have you ever seen a Nazi movie? If you say "yes" for one of this questions, then you know what you will watch if you rent or buy "RAZA". The movie was directed by the impersonal director of the Franco´s fascist and dictatorial regime Sainz de Heredia, who was cousin of one of the most important ideological men of the only legal party in those times: Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. The movie is glorify tale about military men against democratic men in Spanish Civil War times. If you don´t know the result of that war: Franco won the war with Hitler´s help, and wrote this movie in 1940 when he was Dictator in chief in Spain. The movie is so bad, that you laugh a lot in some scenes: The Father of the protagonists speaking about death in battlefield: "It´s a honor!! It´s wonderful die for your country!!". The Father, later, dies fighting against United States of America... and dies with a big smile in his face. All a movie of fascist glorification: The democratics are portrayed like bad people, that kill the priests, and steals the bread...

I say you once more time... DON´T SEE THIS BAD MOVIE!!! YOU COULD BECAME A NAZI AFTER THAT... OR DIE OF LAUGHING ATTACK!!

Very interesting work to know the point of view of spanish national ideology. Franco supposedly wrote the script of this mediocre film. Indispensable to understand certain things of the Spanish Civil War.

Absoluty awful. Pure fascism

Not a bad film in the technical features, well shooted and with some good acting, mostly from José Nieto in the role of Pedro Churruca Jr (the bad brother later redeemed by doing treason to his previous comrades and returning to the "right" track).

Sáenz de Heredia was a good director, one of the top names of Spanish cinema, and He has much better pictures than this one.

Anyway, the script (based on a novel written by Franco) is very partial, and depicts the enemy as bloody thirsty avengers who want to destroy everything that is "good" and "pure" (to be fair the rebel side, commanded by Franco, killed at least as much people as the other - and possibly more - during the war, and when the war was over, the dictatorship created by Franco continued to killing people from the prisons for another ten years! So when you see Raza try to put things in their right terms. This is a movie made from the winner's point of view, so you better don't take the political side too seriously if you want to understand the real situation of Spain in the last years of the 19th century and the first forty years of the 20th.