Lasa y Zabala

Making a movie about terrorists, even though when they are on the other side of the cannon, shouldn't be a glorifying exercise for their repulsive actions. Almost a thousand lives were lost to terrorist attacks by ETA. Uplift the story of a one-off dirt from the authorities as if it was the norm is pure bigotry.

The war against terrorism looks like something that always has been dirty and heinous. Spain was not an exception, more having in account: the brutality of the precedent Franco's dictatorship and the huge power to abuse inherited by the army as a kind of legacy. In this case, politicians were the puppeteers behind the orders for kidnapings, for torture in the most brutal way, and for executions without trial. This movie is a portrait of Spain under terrorist attacks, and a record of the stupidity and desperate measures from the military forces of Spain to get positive results, even doing all kind of atrocities.

But this "portrait" is told from the nationalism's side of "Pais Vasco", foundational place of the ETA terrorism group. This point of view, sometimes appears unbalanced to the Vasco-ETA side: the narrative has been self indulgent and showing ETA members with a kind of innocent status on this cruel war; but in some way, this unbalanced vision could be excused by the fact that atrocities are something that has no nation or ideology. Atrocities can't be or look like something right or benevolent. Atrocities always are repugnant and are unjustified, no matter which side you choose to view the story.

Good production with a great work of edition, that finally conducts the viewer to feel lots of the pain suffered by the victims. In the movie's end, cruelty and injustice touches everybody's hearts.

I give to the movie a 9/10 rating