Land and Freedom Director: Ken Loach Cert. 15
Land and Freedom is set in the Spanish civil war of 1936-39. It operates as a flashback, beginning in modern-day Liverpool where an old man dies and his grand-daughter, looking through his papers, finds newspaper cuttings about the Spanish war and a mysterious handful of soil wrapped in a red handkerchief.
But first, a little background. In July 1936, with the rest of Europe dreading war with fascist Italy and Germany, General Franco and other Spanish generals staged a revolt against the democratically elected socialist coalition government - the Popular Front - claiming they were morally obligated to save Spain from 'Communism and Godlessness.' Most ordinary Spaniards did not see it like that and took up arms to defend their Republic. Political opinion swiftly polarised with the government rather stranded in the middle. The consequent three year civil war, fought with extraordinary viciousness, resulted in victory for Franco's 'Nationalists' and a dictatorship in Spain which only ended with the Generalissimo's death in 1975.
Betrayal
Civil wars are particularly tragic as the enemy is within and serial betrayal inevitable. Here the horror is all the more striking as the events are so recent. One can still find Spaniards who lived through it all and whose relatives were killed in battle or by the death squads.
