all have judgments and prejudices and do what we can with them. I am one of many English who, rightly or wrongly, shudder at the films of children in civil war or its aftermath. I also saw the film dubbed into Castilian, and I am convinced that I missed things, because usually the dubbing to Catalan and Castilian lose However, Catalan is a language with a sound beautiful and usually very helpful in the movies. Another weakness.
The point is that I went to see "Pa negre" in the hope that it is true what they said is not a film more about the civil war, no topics, is the portrait of a rural Catalonia in a historic moment period, without more, the children perform great, there is a magic component that is imposed on political ... but did not see it that way. Of course, the bill of the film is impeccable, the performances, especially that of the girl, there's a bonanza, are portentous, is a story that is told well and with consistency ... but there are topics, go if any.
of all, the dialectic "winners-losers" is from the beginning. The winners are haughty and arrogant, without exception, highlighting the town mayor, played by Sergi Lopez with his usual lack of naturalness. The losers are poor, humble, but with a big heart - "one heart, son, that no one can ever take away, remember" - peasants working under the command of the area caudillitos-Franco, of course, and also political persecution have to deal with contempt and false morality of the priests, fat and cruel, and without a hint of true Christian charity.
The priests of truth, you know, only appear in movies Icíar Bollaín and Fernando Leon de Aranoa.
Sorry, but I can not. I will not go down in history or politics, just the fatigue of the story: all that and I learned from six years when I read the excellent "Paracuellos", by Carlos Giménez. More than 25 years gives me a horrible lazy having to see the mayor angry and serious all the time, priests and monks or those greedy and ruthless ex-militants or those refugees. I'm not interested as a spectator, that's all. I do not find credible the total lack of nuance. Unless we're talking about war movies, of course, that's another thing. But trying to portray a time and place with stereotypical strokes exhausts me.
The movie is saved, I say, for his undoubted quality film, the hand of someone who knows exactly what he does and a group of actors in a state of grace, as the Catalan cinema in general. I guess to see it in its original language and without prejudice would have helped me, but if you share some of those prejudices is wrong with me or just the opposite, probably this mini-review might have helped them for something.
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