A hand grenade of a film from one of the truly dark moments in 20th century Spanish history but Salvador goes way beyond a bio-pic. For me the finest moment in the movie was when his guard reads the letter he had written to his father and in those words he sees that his prisoner is a man of flesh and blood capable of feelings and consciousness.
What the movie really is about is the inhumanity of capital punishment and how it is used as a political tool, a tool of vengeance which is something that any modern judicial system must avoid at all cost. The garrote device used in the execution is just about the most horrible thing I've ever seen. I am 100% positive that he couldn't have been breathing or alive at the end. This type of strangulation results in death in seconds.
Brilliant acting all around and I completely believed every second of the story. It all seems like so long ago but it happened in my lifetime. In Spanish and Catalan. My Catalan is lousy as no one speaks it here. I learn more Catalan in a week in Barcelona than I do all year here in Valencia.
On a negative note the last 20 minutes of the film dragged on way too long.
What the movie really is about is the inhumanity of capital punishment and how it is used as a political tool, a tool of vengeance which is something that any modern judicial system must avoid at all cost. The garrote device used in the execution is just about the most horrible thing I've ever seen. I am 100% positive that he couldn't have been breathing or alive at the end. This type of strangulation results in death in seconds.
Brilliant acting all around and I completely believed every second of the story. It all seems like so long ago but it happened in my lifetime. In Spanish and Catalan. My Catalan is lousy as no one speaks it here. I learn more Catalan in a week in Barcelona than I do all year here in Valencia.
On a negative note the last 20 minutes of the film dragged on way too long.