BASQUE FILMS at the CORNER HOUSE MANCHESTER.
Films with a Basque theme have been showing at the Manchester CORNER HOUSE over the last few years in the SPANISH VIVA FILM FESTIVAL in March. The MANCHESTER Film Festival is the biggest Spanish film festival in the country.
At the 2002 Festival, it was the film YOYES (15) made in 1999 which was shown. The story of Yoyes is one of the incidents which, if I was attracted to nationalist terrorism, would make me think twice. Jim Pinkerton, a former Internetional Secretary of the old Syndicalist Workers' Federation (SWF), used to argue that in the 1970s ETS (unlike the IRA) used to be discriminate in its targets. The assasination of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, who was blown to pieces by a Basque separatist bomb in 1973 was, according to Robert Hughes, the art critic, 'one of thefew terrorist actions of the 1970s that can be shown to have had unequivical good results, since it left no one in power capable of preserving the ideology of Franquism.' This act excited the left ever in this country and there followed a packed meeting at the Las O'Gowry in Machester, addressed by young Spanish and Portuguese anarchists.
Later in 1987, when I was working in the Gibraltar Shipyard of GIBREPAIR Ltd, the Basque group ETA let a bomb off in a Catalan supermarket in Barcelona. This act caused great disgust in Andalucia where I lived and the rest of Spain. It seemed to show that nationalist terror groups, and probably terror groups in general, run the risk of corruption whatever their orginal ideals. Under the stain of the twilight world of terrorism it seems even the finest ideals and principals begin to suffer.
I speak from a bit of experience: I had Kasmiri friends in Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in the early 1980s. Asian friends who had been involved with me in the Arrow Mill strike in 1970, some who later became involved with the Pakitani Government agents in their fight against theIndian occupation of Kashmir. My own involvement with the young Spanish libertarians of the FIJL in Spain and France in the 1960s, had a similar deteriorating effect on personal morality (see my critique of Stuart Christie's 'Granny Made Me an Anarchist' in my booklet 'God Help the anarchist Movement that needs heroes'; see also the Book Review Thread of this web forum). One so easily starts to justify things on the basis of the ends justify the means.
The film YOYES, staring veteran Spanish star Anna Torrent, shows this decline into moral corruption. In 1999, when it was produced it represented a directorial debut by Helena Taberna. It is apowerful portriat of the first woman to hold a position of responsibility in ETA. When she has a kiddie, after years of involvement in this Basque separatist organisation, she decides to leave and live a normal life. She goes with her child and spends years in self imposed excile in Mexico and changes her life completely. Only when she decides to return home with her daughter to her Basque homeland does she come to represent a threat that can't be ignored by either ETA or the Spanish State. It is a remarkable film and Anna Torrent is a remarkable actress.
Last year's Spanish Film Festival at the Corner House put on 'LA PELOTA VASCA. La Piel Contra la Piedra' (15) or 'Basque Ball. The skin against the stone' made in 2003 made by the famous Basque director Julio Madem. His other recent film was 'Lovers of theArtic Circle'.
'La Pelota Vasca' represents a return to his Basque roots. 'LA PELOTA' is a well known Basque national ball game. In 'LA PELOTA' he tackles the difficulty of resolving the national problem by opening up the camera to a widerange of Basque views displying 'two irreconcilable national fronts'. He has done this because he thinks the then Spanish government of Aznar had wilfully reduced the range of Basque political opinions.
Hence this is a documentary with knobs on: that is with a background and cuts to the Basque ball game. The director and a ten-person team took 3 months preparing the documentary in 2002; interviewing over 100 people: sociologists, politicians, victims of ETA terrorism, and intellectuals. Two groups refused to take part: Azanar's Patido Popular (PP) and the Basque terror group ETA. The director Medem claims 'LA PELOTA VASCA' to be a search for a dialogue and doesn't really condone violence. There are a fair share of taking heads, but Medem is described as a 'metaphysical' director andit is presented in a dramatic way in which the scenery of the Basque country sometimes even becomes distracting. The content has some 70 interviews, with historic archive footage and tantilising views of the Basque landscape and cities. The Festival's program claims the film aims at 'polyphony'; which means, I supose, a melodic relationship between several independent parts - a kind of harmonic unity. Medem is serching for the meaning of what it means to be Basque. The Viva Festival program also provides a web site address:
www.lapelotavasca.netMedem's documetary was shown at the CORNER HOUSE just after 11th, March 2004, foolowing the bombings in Madrid. In 2003, when it was first shown in Spain, it caused a controversy in Spain about its representation of terrorism and its victims, and it opened up a dispute about the issues of 'balance' and 'objectivity' in documentary film-making. In the Spanish press there were calls for a ban on the film, and this produced another debate about the issue of censorship and freedom of speech.
This year's Basque theme film at the Festival last month was 'EL LOBO' - The Wolf (see Film Review thread). It is a cracking political which everyone should see. That's what I said after the film was shown last month and my ardour hasn't cooled. It shows the true story of the infiltration of ETA by a Basque - Mikel Lejarda, played by the handsome Eduardo Noriega - on behalf of Franco's secret police between 1973 and 75. It demonstrates the corrupt mentality of both the terrorists and the secret policemen. by the time of Franco's death Lejarda is close to the top of the ETA organisation. That is the moment his police controllers drop him in it. From the secret police point of view it is better to have an organisation like ETa around to keep fear in the public mind. This provides the right with a justification to crack down on civil liberties even in a democracy.
Films with a Basque theme have been consistently good in the last few years at the CORNER HOUSE SPANISH FESTIVAL. In the case of El Lobo exceptional. The CORNER HOUSE is a blessing for Mancheste, and Linda who has been the Program Manager there for many years is doing a fantastic job.
BRIAN BAMFORD, EDITOR of NORTHERN VOICES.
