Dos Cataluñas

Most of the time, the document focuses on the "right" of the people from Catalonia to vote for self determination. Actually, as per the Spanish Constitution, such thing does not exist. So the democratic approach should begin with modifying the Constitution which, by the way, is feasible. What is no acceptable is to skip over the law. This detail is not well refected in the reel.

The documentary can be a good start for anyone who tries to understand Catalan politics. It is a crafted work, with dozens of interviews to politicians, journalists, etc. It shows in a very summarized way what the conflict between Catalonia and Spain has been through during the last months. It does a pretty good job comparing the politicians statements with the facts, and makes a good selection of the most important dates of the conflict. We need to bear in mind that this is not an easy job because of the excess of so-called "historic" days during the process.

It also has some flaws. In my opinion, despite trying to be impartial, it's easy to see in some aspects that it is a documentary directed from a Spanish perspective. For example, its title (two Catalonias) suggests a division in the Catalan society, which is something that Madrid media has been repeating all along, but somehow difficult to believe for someone who lives in Catalonia. There is obviously a great diversity of opinions, but all polls show that the suppport towards a Catalan referendum is somewhere between 70-80% of the people living in Catalonia. The conflict arises not because of the diversity of opinions, but for the impossibility of doing a binding referendum. But being in favour or against independence does not bring more social fracture than being in favour or against an inheritance tax, for example.

The documentary interviews about 70 people, at least 40 of them are against independence and 23 of them are pro-independence. Also some of the data offered is not 100% accurate. For example they say that only 42% of people participated in the referendum, but they do not clarify that such percentage does not include the thousands of votes seized by police.

Also, when they talk about the Comuns party they only say that is "a party against independence". Anyone who has followed Catalan politics for some time would agree that despite this being true, this is a really poor way of describing such party's approach towards independence. It is a party that has always been in favor of a referendum, with many independentists in their electoral rolls. They have insisted many times not to be counted neither in the independentist bloc, nor in the unionist one. Most media from different countries have respected that, but newspapers and TVs from Madrid have always included them in the unionist bloc.

To sum up, it is a quite entertaining piece of work that ends up showing what many Madrid citizens would consider an impartial description of what has happened in Catalonia during the last year.

This is a serious documentary that features many interviews and behind-the-door conversations, but seriously suffers from false equivalency and does little to illuminate the societal dynamics. The title "Two Catalonias" is a major unimaginative cop out. All we get is political points uttered from both "sides", without never getting any idea what the Catalan population is actually thinking. I came out more confused than enlightened. The filmmakers refuse to give the ethnic dimension in the struggle any attention or legitimacy: it's all about economics and political populism (whether in Barcelona or Madrid) with the public depicted as agent-less masses just going along with whoever manages to rouse them or push them. I simply can't buy it. It would have helped the viewers if the filmmakers had somehow indicated who speaks Spanish and who Catalan; are there some distinction between Castilian- and Catalan-speakers? What role does Spanish chauvinism play in the process and Catalan history under dictatorship? I understand that the Catalan pro-independence politicians try to promote themselves as tolerant progressive Europeans and pose themselves against the more backward Castilian chauvinism, but the filmmakers could have penetrated these public images and analyzed the societal dynamics more deeply. The few foreign reporters commenting on the affairs don't add anything illuminating and just offer the regular boring "balanced" analysis. I'm sure the filmmakers could have found more interesting observers. Though the film has some interesting features, in the end, it offers too little information for the viewer to decide which "side" of the story is more convincing and what are ordinary Catalans actually thinking.

I'm all for unity in general, so the theme of certain countries/states trying to divide or split off - that's not something I'm particular in favor of. Having said that though, I'm also for free speech and I'm for people deciding what they want to do. And if Catalonia (or rather the majority of the people living there), feel better (safer?), if they split off Spain - who are we to tell them they shouldn't? And what law are they breaking exactly? Well the movie (documentary) tries to shine as much light on that as possible.

We do get current events (well a couple of years ago as of today), all culminating on the voting day ... one of the most vile and abhorent acts that a goverment has done to their own people - even if they don't want to be their people anymore. This is really troubling but also very enganging to watch. Whatever you think of the whole thing, beating up citizens that are mostly peaceful? That is really messed up ... and to think that still is a possibility in this day and age? Wow, just wow. Also how they try to cover that up. But the documentary is way more than that

Haven't finished watching yet, but feel like they could be talking about the US. I guess we are not alone in our sad divisive condition. :(