Espoir - Sierra de Teruel

This film is based on one chapter of André Malraux's novel L'ESPOIR (HOPE) published in 1937. The Spanish title was SIERRA DE TERUEL and the two English titles used from 1945 on were MAN'S HOPE and DAYS OF HOPE. But the French title is ESPOIR ('HOPE'). The film was directed by Malraux himself, aided by the Russian Boris Peskine. Malraux also co-wrote the screenplay. The film concerns real events which took place at Teruel in north-eastern Spain in 1937, and was shot on location in 1938, with a Spanish cast and more than one thousand local peasants. The film is so realistic it is practically a dramatized documentary. The film was financed by the Spanish Second Republic. Malraux himself joined the Republicans in 1936 to fight against Franco. He was a commandant of an air squadron, and hence the extremely dramatic shots of aerial combat and the story focusing on a brave bombing raid. A great deal of genuine 1938 war footage is used, which is well integrated into the drama, and some of which seems to have been of the actual bombing raid itself. The film was finished in 1939 and shown a few times in Paris. As a piece of history, the film is priceless, because it is entirely authentic and was made only months after the real events. The Vichy regime in France and the Franco regime in Spain seized and destroyed all copies of the film which could be found. But one print secretly survived, which surfaced in 1945, and was shown in Paris then. The film I have seen was of that one surviving print which was restored in 2003. The film was never entirely finished, and there are frequent bridging texts linking the filmed episodes in order to make the story continuous and complete. These texts are original, as it was clearly impossible to film everything called for in the script because of the Franco regime's control of Spain. Although the film certainly had propaganda value, I would not call it a propaganda film, because its integrity is too great for such a categorisation. The language of the film is Spanish, but I have seen it with English subtitles (from Movie Detective). This is as far from a Hollywood war film as anyone could get. Everything about the film's look and impact is real and authentic. Whether the story has been somewhat romanticised or not we may never know, but that hardly matters. One feels one is really there in those small Spanish towns with deserted streets and a few straggling Republicans sharing a single military rifle and otherwise only having their hunting rifles, and precious few of those. They search all over town to find a single car which they can 'borrow' for a daring raid. Brave men suddenly fall dead and others survive, showing the randomness of war. The aerial scenes are amazing. They need to blow up a crucial bridge and a new air field. At one point a plane is flown by a man who has not flown since 1918, 19 years earlier; he crash lands because he was not allowed his two hours of practice to get back in the swing of things. But he survives to continue to serve bravely. We see incomplete planes in an improvised hangar with their fronts off, waiting for the engines which never arrived. Everything about the war waged by the Republicans was improvised, for lack of funds and supplies, in their struggle against Franco's army which was so amply funded and supplied by the Hitler regime. Even the way to the enemy airfield is only made possible because a local peasant from the adjoining village leads the pilot of the bomber by means of spotting the lanes and fields from the air, interrupted by clouds. This film was influenced to a certain extent by Russian cinema, with some dramatic shots of the heroic 'people'. But mainly, action dominates. No one appears to be acting, and although most people in the film are amateurs, that only adds to the realism. What an amazing film this is!

Interesting film made in 1938–39 but released commercially in 1945 . It shows defense of the 2nd Spanish Republic by the Republican air force , filmed on location in northeastern Spain , Teruel , Catalonia and Paris . A jinjoistic picture , praising the feats of II Republic , blending real deeds , documentaries , fiction and breathtaking scenes . 1937 , during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) , Spanish Republican forces fight against the better-equipped Francoist armies in the desolate Sistema Ibérico mountains of the Province of Teruel . This fight was inspired by actual events based on Republicans who battle with very poor means against fascist army of General Franco . There appear the followings heroes : commandant Peña (José Sempere) , captain Muñoz (Andres Mejúto) , captain Schreiner (Pedro Codina) , a politician commissar with high commitment called Arrignies (Julio Peña) and including the valuable help a countryman (José Maria Lado) , all of them execute a dangerous assignment : get to destroy and bombing a bridge on the road to Zaragoza , an essential objective to advance of the rebel forces . Meanwhile , peasants support the Republic and refugees flee bombing of Teruel and surroundings . But the plane crashes and countrymen and villagers rescue and help the wounded fliers .

This is a fiction/documentary film written/directed by Andre Malraux based on a chapter of his novel ¨La Esperanza¨ or ¨The hope¨ . It includes spectacular scenes of street fighting and a bombing raid , adding shot footage . And an impressive as well as epic finale with lots of people helping the injured pilots transported through mountains , influenced by classy Russian filmmakers (Sergei M Eisenstein , Pudovkin) and in Italian Neorrealist style . Film copies were pursued by the Gestapo , though remained one washed-out print , subsequently being remastered and it was not commercially released until 1945 . Malraux wrote the novel L'Espoir, or Man's Hope, being supervised and assisted by the prestigious Max Aub , published in 1937 , which was basis for the film . The crash of a Spanish Republican Air Force Potez 540 plane near Valdelinares inspired André Malraux to write the novel . Different years are given for the film's completion . The novel was published in French in 1937 and in English in 1938 . The film uses war footage from 1938 and was edited , and other scenes shot, during 1938-1939 . It was finished in July 1939 and shown twice in Paris , but the Francoist regime applied pressure to censor it . All known copies were destroyed during World War II , since both Spain and France were ruled by Fascist regimes sympathetic to the forces that shot down the plane . A copy was found and the film was released again in 1945 . In Spain , it was banned and was not screened until 1977, after the death of dictator Franco .

Spanish/French co-production , being financed by 2º Republic , supported by French government and producer Eduard Cogniglion Molinier . Sierra De Teruel (English title : Days of Hope or Man's Hope) is a 1938-39 Spanish-French black and white war film well photographed by Manuel Berenguer , Louis Page and other cameramen , and compellingly directed by Boris Peskine and André Malraux in his only movie . It can be seen as romanticized witness and a lyrical work of filmmaker and screen-writer Andre Malraux. The novelist and essayist André Malraux (1901-1976) , who joined the Republicans in 1936 , was a commandant of an aviation squadron during Spanish Civil war and resistance member against the invading Nazis in WWII . This notorious writer/director won the 1945 Prix Louis Delluc .

This unfinished ¨Sierra De Teruel¨ is considered to be the best film about Spanish Civil War , along with ¨The Last Train from Madrid¨ (1937) by James P. Hogan ; ¨Blockade¨ (1938) by William Dieterle ; ¨Comrades at Sea¨ (1938) or ¨Kameraden Auf See¨ by Heinz Paul ; ¨Frente De Madrid¨ (1939) by Edgar Neville ; ¨Arise, My Love¨ (1940) by Mitchell Leisen ; ¨The siege of Alcazar¨(1940) by Augusto Genina ; ¨The Squadron¨ (1941) by Antonio Román , ¨Rojo y negro¨(1942) by Carlos Arévalo ; ¨The Fallen Sparrow¨ (1943) by Richard Wallace ; ¨For Whom the Bell Tolls¨ (1943) by Sam Wood ; ¨The Angel Wore Red¨ (1960) by Nunnally Johnson ; ¨La Paz Empieza Nunca¨ (1960) by Leon Klimovsky ; ¨Five Cartridges¨(1960) by Frank Beyer ; ¨Morir En Madrid¨ (1963) by Frederic Rossiff ; ¨Behold a Pale Horse¨ (1964) by Fred Zinnemann ; ¨Viva la Muerte¨ (1971) by Fernando Arrabal , among others .

I looked up this film online while watching a youtube deep dive into the Potez 540 war plane bomber. It was a bomber designed in the early 1930s that could carry a world war two size bomb load, but it only had about the same speed as a world war one bomber, and the same amount of defense and construction. The video mentioned the writer of this film and this being an amazing film, so I looked for it and found it online by the title, "Sierra de Teruel, André Malraux, 1938". So with that in mind, I expected a bloodbath of these planes getting shot down, which is how things start in the first minute. After that it transfers to a ground film to be ended by an air mission. Overall, I was not that impressed (until the end), but I think this was made before the end of the war there and he was on the losing side. I saw a slight mention of the socialist society mentioned and someone who wondered if he should keep fighting. Obvious last ditch war effort, reminds me of the 1942 Italian war movie made of a doomed North African outfit they would make a film about to motivate people before total surrender. It gets very exciting in the later stages as the air missions go ahead, mostly suicide missions, think of the Dawn Patrol but with French bombers that are huge. The way they drop the bombs at 50 minutes in may be of special curiosity to war history buffs, a relay of messages! Parasol wing fighters are also a rarity, I don't think I have seen any of these aircraft depicted in a war film before. 7 of 10 for the ending alone.