Salvador Puig Antic film
After many weeks of waiting for the release of the film Salvador on the screen this weekend I could went to see it. Catalan film director Manuel Huerga has made an impressive film around the history of Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antic. When the film was over the people stand up and start clapping for a few minutes. After many years of going to the cinema in Barcelona, I only remember a reaction like this to Julio Medem's Euskal Pelotoa, a documentary on the political situation in the Basque Country.Salvador was one of latest persons officially condemned to the death penalty during the fascist Franco regime. He was one of the founders of MIL (Movimiento Ibérico de Liberación), an anarchist armed group built up in the seventies during the dictatorship in Spain.
Salvador was involved in armed confrontation to the Spanish forces. A policeman was killed and he got shoot. He went to prison. After Carrero Blanco, the person what was going to replace Franco, was killed by ETA, the military wanted retaliation. They decided to execute Salvador.
Salvador was executed on the 2th of March of 1974. Interesting also to see how Salvador did not get any help from people in the formal political parties (that were not legal at the time) that a few years later were ruling the country (and some are still doing). The same day, Heinz Ches was also executed using the Garrote (A Spanish device used to execute death penalties). There is a good documentary called The Death of Nobody that explains the history of Heinz Chez. In Barcelona was only exhibited in one cinema when it was released. I remember that we were only four or five people that day in the cinema.
Probably the best book out there about the MIL and Salvador Puig antic is La Torna de la Torna signed by a group of people under the name of Carlota Tolosa. A very concise book about the history and formation of the MIL and Salvador.A must see film for anyone trying to understand better the repression of the dictatorship and the political situation in Catalonia in the latest times of the Franco regime. Some people did not like the film.
Maybe you could point that those people that don’t like the film argue that the book which it’s based on it’s miles away from “La Torna de la Torna” in terms of political and historical fidelity for evident political interests.
Cheers,
kapde