Silence Brisé

After the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1938, Republican guerrillas continued to fight against the Franco government carrying out sabotage actions and executions of Francoist authorities and members of the hated Civil Guard guilty of crimes against civilians. During WWII they substantially contributed to the fight against Nazi Germany and the Vichy regime in France, both as members of the Resistance and as soldiers in the Free French army.

By 1944, with German forces in retreat, the guerrillas refocused their attention on the liberation of Spain. That year, there was an invasion by a maquis force through Val d'Aran and other passes in the Pyrenees with the hope of being supported by the invading Allied Armies in France. However, the Germans were still a formidable menace, the Allied command was wary of opening a new front, and help didn't materialize.

Guerrilla activities intensified right after the end of WWI in 1945. Due to its support for the Nazis during the war Spain was internationally isolated, its economy collapsed, and an uprising seemed imminent. However, the Franco government joined the nascent crusade against Communism and opened Spain to American bases. The enemy now was Communism, and Nazi crimes were discreetly swept under the rug. The Spanish government carried out a savage campaign against the guerrillas where civilians suspected of collaboration were tortured and murdered without trial. Savagery worked, and the guerrillas gradually faded away. All the while the regime suppressed every bit of information about this war, which may be the reason for the title Silencio Roto (Broken Silence).

The movie begins in 1944, with Lucía (Lucía Jiménez) returning to her birthplace, a village in Navarra and getting involved with Manuel (Juan Diego Botto), a blacksmith that acts as contact for the guerrillas and joins them shortly after. However the romance, realistically presented, is not the main subject. Navarrese director Montxo Armendáriz weaves an atmospheric tale of day-to-day life in the village, where guerrilla successes translate in savage reprisals, not reporting suspicious activities may be fatal and where neighbors denounce each other for survival or to avenge old grievances. Cinematography captures skillfully the melancholic landscapes and shady interiors and acting is excellent not only from the principals but from all the supporting cast, with special mention for Maria Sampietro. The movie can be found in the streaming services with the title Time of Honor.

I cannot help thinking that sometimes the countryside in which a film is set is almost as important as the story-line of the film itself. This often happens with films by Montxo Armendáriz, who, not surprisingly, makes good use of his own native and beautiful Navarra. This is evidently the case with `Tasio' (qv) and `Secretos del Corazón' (qv), the latter film being without any doubt his masterpiece up till now.

For `Silencio Roto', he moved across to the north-east of Pamplona, in the heavily wooded valley of the River Urrobi, otherwise known as the `Valle de Arce' - precisely because that is what most abounds in this tight little valley: `arces', maple trees. Coming down the valley from Urrobi along the narrow winding road following the tumbling sparkling river, after about 5 kilometres you have on the left Villanueva de Arce and Arrieta, and on the right Lusarreta and Saragüeta, four villages where this film was shot: old timbered houses with cabbage allotments and runner-beans, chickens running free, a few pigs, old barns covering old Fordson tractors, and balconies ablaze with peonies, amid dung heaps not very hidden behind the hedgerows, and the odd "borda" where you can get something to eat! Do not go on down beyond Uriz or Arce as all the rest has been flooded by a monstrosity called the Aoiz Dam (Itoiz), a savage crime against nature, a heneous crime against those lovely little villages which have been drowned in the name of progress........

With `Silencio Roto' Armendáriz has carried out an ambition of his, which was to bring to life as realistically as possible life in the years following the Civil War, and specifically that of the `maquis'. The `maquis' were groups of men - a few women - who hid in the hills after the war finished, to continue their struggle against the fascist regime of Franco. These groups, which might be called `guerillas' (in Spanish `guerilleros'), lasted for years in the mountains of Asturias, Euskadi (Basque Country) and Navarra, principally, with a few in places like León and Cantabria.

Perhaps the best-known example for English readers on the hill-fighters in Spain is Hemingway's novel `For Whom The Bells Toll' which has also been made into film, but of course has no relation nor comparison with Almendáriz's film: Almendáriz is Navarran to the core and has nurtured his local folklore and traditions since he was born.

Thus authenticity would seem to be the key to the making of this film.

Frankly I am usually more than fed up with films here in Spain resorting to the Franco years as a kind of scapegoat, as I have said elsewhere on IMDb. I say that more or less in the same way I would say I get more than fed up with the eternal John Wayne being the `goodie', or with Harrison Ford playing himself in just about every film he has made.

However, with Armendáriz you have to take into consideration the artesan or craftsman at work: he is not there just to splash a story on screen so that you lap it up the same as you might with almost any frightful TV series or any of those ghastly Hugh Grant/Richard Gere/............... (I leave the space for you) tragic dollar-makers. There are a few European directors eminently capable of getting down to the innermost parts of the souls of people - Ermanno Olmi, Jaco van Dormael, Bertrand Tavernier, Víctor Érice and Mario Camus come to mind - and Armendáriz is one of that very select group.

Wonderful photography and acceptable music score accompany some good interpretations. Mercedes Sampietro as ever just wonderful, as also the veteran Álvaro de Luna, and it was nice to see Asunción Balaguer, now widower of our one and only Paco Rabal. I was disappointed not to see more of Andoni Erburu after his astounding playing in `Secretos del Corazón'. The lead actors, Juan Diego Botto as Manuel and Lucía Jiménez as Lucía (!!) were fine, especially Ms Jiménez who had to take the brunt of almost the whole run-time of the film on her shoulders, but did so with more than acceptable naturalness. There are also other actors with genuine Navarran surnames - Erro, Goñi - who gave us a few authentic accents!

I always mean to find some film-director and ask him: where the hell did you find that old bus/motor-cycle/aeroplane etc. for the film? You watch a film set in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, but made only the other day, and you marvel at these wonderful old vehicles or even genuine old Singer sewing-machines. But here, as in `Secretos del Corazón', Armendáriz knew where to find these lovely old treasures. The bus that pulls into the village at the beginning of the film is a wooden-bodywork, driver-behind-the-engine that might well have been running on solid tyres! In fact the film uses objects from the ethnological museum belonging to Julio Baroja, an eminent writer on philosophical, sociological and ethnological matters.

Not so far away you can visit the ethnological museum in Arteta, to the west of Pamplona. Painstakingly run by José Ulibarrena Arellano, a vast higgledy-piggledy collection of household and farm equipment - from old toys and kettles to hand-saws and drills and horseshoes. Even the house is a museum in itself, dating from the 16th/17th Century.

Just in case you are wondering: all this - and films by Armendáriz in general - is little more than an hour away by car from where I am now, and, it should be said, here in the Rioja we have a small city which years ago was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Navarra. Obviously, then, geographically and most definitely as a clear indication of neighbourliness, anything and everything to do with Navarra is of great interest to me. It is simply a question of Ramiro Sánchez and Doña Urraca and people like that, you see?

Seriously now, take pains to study this film closely. Whereas it may fall short of the poetic exquisiteness of `Secretos del Corazón', it is still worth the attention of intelligent viewers who would wish to grasp historical and cultural aspects of `old' Europe, well, Spain in this case.

Montxo Armendariz film about an episode of the Spanish history is interesting, but at the same time it is very confusing, as proven by the samples heard after the projection at the recent film cycle at the Walter Reade theater in New York.

Most of us in the audience obviously knew about some of the history that is shown in the film, but not enough as the first person, Ossanser, from Valencia, Spain who wrote the first commentary on the opening page . That is why at times we are lost in trying to think how was it possible to see the rebels fighting when both the Civil War and World War II were over.

The film was interesting to watch, but there are a lot of loose ends that are not resolved, as far as we are concerned.

Loved the women in this film the best. Lucia Jimenez, Mercedes Sanpietro and Maria Botto were very restrained. It's about the best quality I find with Mr. Armendariz's films, in contrast with some other Spanish directors, he's the captain of the ship and nothing seems to be out of place, contrary to other 'geniuses' from Spain who sometimes let the cast get away with murder.

One can only wish the best to this director in future films.

I recently noted that one of the most forgotten men groups in the history about the terrible spanish civil war (1936-1939) are the "maquis". They were the fighters for freedom that resist in the mountains after the General Franco´s victory. They fought till nearly 1950, in several fast hits... they only wanted the liberty for the spanish people, then in the hands of the fascist ideology. But in more than 25 years of pacific democracy and progress, and a lot of movies about that war... very poor was the number of them that spoke about "maquis". Montxo Armendáriz, director of the 1998 Best Foreign Language Academy Award nominee "Secrets from the heart" has done it. It is a truly movie. With very good performances, specially Mercedes Sampietro and Lucía Jimenez, and a good screenplay he has done a spectacular movie for the heart. For the remenbrances. For the people who didn´t know nothing about this phenomenon, and for those that lived it... A song to the liberty... not only a movie.

I saw this film in Madrid and experienced something I had never encountered in a Spanish cinema--- the audience was completely silent during the film. And the house was packed.

The beautiful setting of the film, in the north of Spain, stood in sharp contrast to the depressing circumstances of the villagers as they attempted to carry on the struggle against the Falange as represented in the film by the Guardia Civil. The drama of this well-acted film was steady and wrenching.

Always interested in the Spanish Civil War, this film made me more aware of the heavy price the Spaniards paid as a consequence of the fascists' victory.