In recent years, works of fiction such as Patriaadaptation of the hit by Fernando Aramburu; the movie Faith of ETAin which Borja Cobeaga opened a space for humor as a critical treatment against violence or the acclaimed work Maixabel, by Iciar Bollaín, who widens the field of vision between victims and executioners, they dare to look at ETA’s terrorism without fear. But there was a time when cinema and fiction that wanted to focus on this reality did so from a much more complex context. It is the case of We are all invitedthe film that RTVE Play rescues, in which Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón portrays the lives of those threatened by the terrorist group in Euskadi.
We are all invited was conceived in the early 2000s, during one of ETA’s last truces. Its filming was modified when the terrorist group dynamited it with the Barajas attack in 2001 and, finally, it ends up being released in 2008, after the murder of a former councilor of the Socialist Party of Euskadi, on the eve of a general election. In those years, It seemed that there was no ideal time to address this issue.but for Gutiérrez Aragón it was essential to address it through cinema, a small contribution to the fight in defense of democracy.
ETA, from a double perspective
To the director who was interested in showing the two sides of reality. That of the threatened university professor (Jose Coronado) and that of the terrorist (Oscar Jaenada) who loses his memory after being injured when he skips a civil guard checkpoint and begins to consider the meaning of his actions. The director wanted to make a portrait of the life of those threatened with death by ETA, but above all of the idea that there was a time when coexistence with it was terrifyingly everyday. “The reality of the Basque Country is multiple and changing, but it had one constant, deathand that was the topic I wanted to bear witness to with this film. What is life and death in the Basque Country. I wanted to bear witness to all these years in the Basque Country,” explained the director.
We are cinema – We are all invited (Preview)
Gastronomy, another protagonist
Many will find it curious that there is a certain prominence of Basque gastronomy in the plot of the film. The protagonist, Xabier, does not give up going to his dinners. gastronomic society despite the warnings he receives from the police. A series of lunches and dinners are repeated while Josu Jon, the forgetful activist, returns to the scene. “In this movie, The role of gastronomy does not respond at all to a kind of author’s seal. Gastronomic societies and food are very important in the Basque Country. There have been several people murdered during a dinner. That is why it is something very present in the narrative. It is something motivated because gastronomic societies are very present in Basque social life,” explained the director in the film’s notes.
The reason for the timelessness of history
The timelessness of the film was marked by the evolution of recent events, the breaking of the ETA truce and the possibility of releasing it coinciding with a new attack (something that ended up happening). According to the director, talking about something so complex can cause the feeling that things are going to be left out. “There are the murders, the threatened people, the victims, the grudges, the police… That’s why one of the tactics I’ve used is to never say when things happen.because that way I could put things in from different moments,” said Gutiérrez Aragón.
We are cinema – We are all invited (H2)
ETA in Spanish cinema
The one by Gutierrez Aragón joins a list, still small, but notable, of films that address the Basque reality and ETA terrorism. One of the filmmakers who has been most interested in this issue has been Imano Uribe. Yours is Operation Ogrefrom 1979, the first film in Spanish cinema that focused on the terrorist gang. Uribe also directs The Burgos process, Escape from Segovia y days counted (1994), a thriller that has one of the most brilliant casts on national film –Javier Bardem, Carmelo Gómez, Karra Elejalde or Candela Peña – and that He dared, for the first time, to show the ETA members with nuances.
There are also other titles such as Far from the sea, Arian’s journey (2001), by Eduard Boch, His master’s voice (2001), by Emilio Martínez Lázaro, the loneliness (2007) y A shot in the head (2008), by Jaime Rosales. One of the most notable of that time is Yes (2000), by Helena Taberna, which can be placed at one end of history. It tells the last days of the life of the historic leader Dolores González Catarain-whom he gives life to in the film Ana Torrent-, murdered by the gang itself when she decided to abandon the armed struggle and reintegrate into society.
On the opposite side there can be Lobo (2004), by Miguel Courtois, inspired by a police confidant who infiltrated the ranks of ETA and gained the trust of some of its main leaders, led to the dismantling of a good part of the terrorist group’s structures.
In 2021, Maixabelthe film with which Iciar Bollaín won three Goya awards, focused on many of the aspects addressed by Uribe and Taberna, but advanced in forgiveness, delving into the difficulties that Basque society is going through in assimilating one of the most violent periods in its recent history. Through the story of Maixabel Lasa, the first victim of AND who sat down to talk with the murderers of her husband, the socialist Juan Mari Jauregi, Bollaín addressed the phenomenon of terrorism in the Basque Country from a different perspective on Spanish cinema. A film that serves to break taboos and silences around one of the most traumatic stages of Spanish democracy and widens the field of vision between victims and executioners.
A change in perspective that is a consequence of the passage of time and, especially, of the definitive dissolution of ETA, which did not occur until 7 years after the definitive cessation of terrorist actions. “Now that they don’t kill, it’s not dangerous to talk about this, but before making a film about this was very difficult,” Bollaín said in Film Days.
