“We fascists are ordinary people too,” insists Rogelio (Karra Elejalde, TimeCrimes, 2007) near the beginning of Ana Murugarren’s The Bastards’ Fig Tree (La higuera de los bastardos). At this early stage of the film, viewers may find it difficult to sympathise with such a claim. After all, Rogelio’s fascist friends, though certainly once ‘ordinary people’,…
Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) first published by Film4 Synopsis: In Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning fairytale for adults, fascism struggles to trample an innocent’s imagination. Review: In the imagination of filmmakers, there is something about the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and its immediate aftermath that lends itself to the innocent, often fanciful perspective…
Review first published by Grolsch FilmWorks “The children know no pain, thus making them very dangerous, and incapable of surviving in the outside world. We, therefore, must teach them what they do not know – we must teach them pain.” Far from proposing some sort of child torture, the speaker Dr Holzmann (Derek de Lint),…