Yoyes

Dolores Gonzalez, Yoyes, deals with a regretted terrorist very well played by Ana Torrent along with a fine support cast as Ernesto Alterio, Florence Pernal, Ramon Langa, Isabel Ordaz, Iñaqui Ierra, Adolfo Fernandez, Marxelo Rubio, among others. Yoyes had a moving and tragic life from Basque Country and she was member of the terrorist Marxist Lenilist organization Eta that committed around 1000 murders, killing especially Police, Guardia Civil and military. Operating from the sixties, these separatist terrorists have caused a lot of massacres, slaughters, wounded people, destruction, and wreak havoc. She took part at the terrorist organization as killer executioner and as a main member of the commanding committee. Her life takes a breaking point when she witnesses the killing of another terrorist, a brain of the organization called Argi : Iñaqui Ierra. Yoyes along with sweetheart, a philosophy professor : Ernesto Alterio with whom she marries, flee to Mexico and Francia : Paris and Biarriz. After spending 10 years in Mexico Yoyes returns to Spain, attempting to live a pacific existence but his life changes dramatically . She regrets his terrorist acts and and being pardoned, thanks to Amnisty Law, she opts for the reinsertion .Then his life as a regretted person goes to news front page. However, the terrorist band doesn't forget. Eta deemed to be Yoyes a traitor and a mole. Then a terrorist gunned him in the head in front of her little daughter.

Here director Helena Taberna makes a decent flick, being her first and best movie, including biographic elements, drama, thrills, and suspense. It is a passable yarn, though slow-moving, and tiring, at times. The story is paced by means of long flashbacks and being some hard comprehend due to the narration goes back and forth. In the picture also appears other historical events as dirty war against Eta, El Gal, massacre at the Rolando Cafeteria with 11 dead people in which Eta divided itself into 2 organizations :Eta political-military and Eta military , and death of Franco 1975, among others. There is a certain glorification to this woman when she was really a simple regretted terrorist who directed the band and comitted some murders.

It contains an atmospheric and adequate cinematography by Federico Ribes. And a sensitive and exciting musical score by Angel Illaramendi who has composed good soundtracks of known films as Son of bride, El celo, The cliff, Lluvia en los zapatos, Luna de Avellaneda, Los Borgia. The motion picture well produced by Enrique Cerezo and Jose Luis Garci, was professionaly directed by Helena Taberna, though I has some flaws and failures. Taberna is a good filmaker who has directed a few documentary films and shorts as Nagore, Alsasua 1936, Extranjeras, Varados and big screen movies as El acantilado, El contenido del silencio and Yoyes. Rating 6 out of 10

This is the story of Dolores González (aka "Yoyes"), a woman who made it to the directive committee of ETA (the terrorist-separatist from Basque Country, Spain) in a time where the activities of the band might be justified in some way (the last years of Franco's dictatorship). Once the band began to murder civilians she decided to leave, she exiled in Mexico and after 12 years she came back to Spain to live and ordinary life. ETA shot her in the head in front of her little daughter: they considered that she was a traitor.

I think that a figure such as Yoyes' would have deserved to be filmed by a more expert director, because the débutant Helena Tabernas makes some narrative mistakes, the movie is certainly confusing and slow, some sequences are just pointless, and one or two of the actors weren't up to the job.

The movie went rather unnoticed at the time it was released. It wasn't a good idea to make a movie about a member of ETA when the PP (Popular Party) was governing the country (they were totally against the Basque separatism and, of course, against ETA). Anyway, I think it's a necessary movie that should be watched by anyone. Everything is not just black or white... you know what I mean.

*My rate: 6/10