FILM | The Silence of Others at #LIFF2018

José María Galante, revisits the prison where he was detained and tortured (The Silence of Others)

Screened on Armistice Day, The Silence of Others stands as testament to atrocities committed in Spain under General Franco, and those struggling to come to terms with them over forty years later. Words: NEIL MUDD.

Robert Bahar and Almudena Carracedo’s The Silence of Others, six years in the making, bravely and humanely documents the ongoing battle for justice by victims of General Franco’s brutal regime .

In the wake of the Amnesty law passed after the dictator’s death in November 1975, justice appears to be an elusive commodity in modern-day Spain where people still mark the anniversary with speeches, songs and straight-armed salutes.

Intended to pardon and free from detention Leftist political prisoners, the legislation became known as the Pact of Forgetting for its granting de jure immunity from prosecution anybody accused of crimes under the regime.

With victims forced to convene their legal battle in an Argentinian court to call the Spanish legal system to account, the film presents a nation suffering at odds with itself four decades later.

The horrific catalogue which unfolds of torture, child abduction and widespread loss committed in the name of Franco is still raw and indelible; more shocking is that it happened within living memory and under our very noses.

Yet, the fear – matched equally by hope amongst those with blood on their hands – that Spain’s younger generation will actually just simply forget the troubled period in the country’s history where mothers could be taken from their children, stripped naked, shot and dumped in an unmarked grave, courses through this passionate and fearless film.

Franco’s crimes are not part of the curriculum in Spanish schools it seems. Until recently, the streets of Madrid carried names of men like General Yague, one of Franco’s officers, known as the Butcher of Badajoz for overseeing the massacre of hundreds of civilians.

Young people interviewed in the film either know nothing about the Pact of Forgetting, or have only the flimsiest grasp of its implications; families argue between themselves, divided on the issue; while others are galvanised into action.

As Human Rights lawyer Ana Messuti remarks, one of the parties in the case against perpetrators of crimes under Franco is time itself.

The Silence of Others ends on a heart-breaking duality: the funeral of one plaintiff, María Martín, haunted by the murder of her mother by Franco’s men when she was a child, and the reuniting of another, Ascensión Mendieta, with her father’s remains as they are disinterred from the anonymous mass grave where his body was dumped.

Ascensión Mendieta, reunited with her father, in The Silence of Others
Ascensión Mendieta, reunited with her father, in The Silence of Others

Bahar and Carracedo point to Chile’s accounting of General Pinochet, but The Silence of Others does not acknowledge there are easy solutions ahead for Spain. What it does offer up, however, is hope: hope in the triumph of justice and compassion over secrecy and lies.

Still to Come at #LIFF2018… Your Perfect Triple Bill… All screenings on Wednesday 14th November

Tampopo * – Leeds Town Hall (Victoria), 13.00 [Also on Tuesday 13th November at 15.30]

Too Late to Die Young – Vue at The Light, 15.30

The Docks of New York (with live score) – Hyde Park Picture House, 18.30