Enquanto a Guerra Durar

Violence may win a fight, but it does not win hearts. It does not persuade. During the first months of the Spanish civil war a senior professor and famous writer, Miguel de Unamuno, doesn't take the uprising too seriously. Cooler heads will prevail he believes. Yet as his friends and colleagues disappear, Miguel realizes he made a great mistake.

While at War is based on real events and the belief that Franco has not really died. "He is a ghost that haunts Spain to this day," said Alejandro Amenabar "the same events could happen again anywhere." Spain made great again. I was fascinated not only by the character of Miguel de Unamuno, but also by the portrayal of Franco. He avoids the inflexibility that brought down other dictators of the time. Franco is quiet, patient and wise in a devious - not moral - sense. He learns from others and changes as needed. It is fascinating to see some aspects of how the fascists and Franco came to power. It is not how I imagined. In my ignorance I even imagined the wrong character to be Franco through half the film. While at War is not merely a good story, it is well made and acted as well. Seen at the Toronto international film festival.

Well directed, well acted, As always Alejandro Amenábar has done an excellent job.

The story follows Miguel de Unamuno who was the rector of the university Salamanca before the war. As with happens with many intellectuals he was blind to the consequences of what was happening around him.

The dictatorship's rise and time in power is still a hot potato here in Spain. The transition to democracy, though smooth, did not manage to heal the wounds of seventy years of dictatorship.

This story is timeless: we cannot see the reality of something until it is too late. But even if we can, are we able to change things? Or is it the man with the gun and all the bullets that decides who is in the right?

The Spanish civil war and the Franco regime are very under represented in the movie world, which is strange due to its obvious cinematic possibilities. Leave it to Alejandro Amenabar, one of my favorite Spanish directors, to try and tackle such an important subject. It takes the POV of Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish writer and intellectual who was the dean of the university of Salamanca, and how the town reacted to the beginning of the civil war, and the eventual rise to power of Franco. What makes this story interesting is the complex relationship that Unamuno had with the rise of the regime and how his complacent actions helped the rise of fascism, much to his dismay. It is very well made, well acted, and the historical recreation is pretty good. My only complaints are that it is a bit biased on the way it sees history and it feels a bit cold.

This is a very good movie, well-acted, well directed and with a nice photography, but the most important is its message and the reflection it causes.

The movie is about Spain in the 30s, but I see its importance in the actual context I'm living right now in my country as a brazilian.

The people who supports or simply doesn't stand up against fascism are not necessarily fascists as we can see in the main character. The brutality, fanatism and absurd could be right in front of your eyes and you still are not able to see and comprehend it, specially if the context you are living is confusing and complex.

Spain paid a very high price because of this and suffered for 40 years in the hands of a fascist - an upholder for the "good spaniards".

That's a movie that should be shown to people like Miguel de Unamuno before it's too late, like it was for him.

The topic is very interesting and it doesn't hurt to remind people how those horrors begin. As a film, it is underwhelming. Gorgeously lensed and well cast, perhaps, the inventivity, the sense of rhythm which I enjoyed so much in his earlier work are absent here. The weight of the historical subject seems to have compelled Amenábar to opt for precision, a certain distance and lack of emotion. Meaningful but academic