“Pertria” has been in the best-selling book position in Spain for more than a year. In its pages, we find a sincere account of the pain that the ETA terrorist group has caused to all strata of society. Today you can enjoy the story in the form of a television series Homeland, the series: can you live a life with grudges?
it is an adaptation for television screens of Fernando Aramburu’s novel of the same name, by screenwriter and executive producer Aitor Gabilondo, which after the screening of the eight-episode series at the San Sebastian Film Festival can already be seen on HBO.
- The series chronicles the drama of two families in a context marked by ETA’s terrorism.
- A terrorist gang.
- In fact a mafia.
- That murdered 853 people with the intention of putting pressure on the government and imposing its will to independence.
The valuable thing about the series, however, is that the series departs from political analysis to give way to human reflection through artistic expression, does not seek to exonerate, compare or relativize the role of both sides of history, it simply expresses the feelings of those who supported the terrorists and those who were persecuted, threatened and killed by them.
For 40 years, the terrorist group ETA, through violence, has tried to be and take power as an interlocutor of the feelings of the Basque Country. In many cases, civil society has been the victim of their attacks, blackmail and threats.
Faced with this position, the State has not always resisted pressure; there were groups, such as the so-called sponsored State (GAL), which also murdered and tortured ETA militants or those suspected of being one. put an end to it which, in many settings, justified or caused some people to join the terrorist gang.
After declaring a permanent ceasefire in 2011, ETA began delivering weapons in 2017, before fully disbanding in May 2018.
It tells the story of two Basque families destroyed by armed conflict for three decades. The announcement in 2011 of the extinction of ETA led the widow Bittori (Lena Irureta) to return to her hometown of San Sebastian, from where she was forced to flee following the murder of her husband, Txato (José Ramon Soroiz), Basque transport entrepreneur.
On his return, many wounds were opened. There they meet Miren (Ane Gabarain) and her husband Joxian (Mikel Laskurain). Friendly families until ETA reaches one of them. What Miren wants are answers, away from ideological revenge, she just wants to know if Joxe Mari (Jon Olivares), son of her ex-boyfriend, was her husband’s killer, knows she’s in jail, but she doesn’t know what her real role was in the crime.
As Pátria progresses, she talks about the friendship between the two families and we understand that there are events that mark a before and after. The urgent need to position oneself by family, geographical or political mandates rationalizes the strongest emotional ties.
Returning to Txato’s death numerous times and replicating the footage from different angles, the series accurately details the effects of extortion and ETA’s influence on social relationships, and fear, not respect. , which could generate.
The Fatherland is honest with the pain that the families of the killers may have suffered, but she also does not hesitate to take on the challenge of telling who they were and how they became murderers.
The series shows us how all families are emotionally devastated, the fact that ETA has dropped their weapons has not prevented many from thinking that murder was the only way to try to subjugate the provisions of the legitimate state. Having said, the series is mostly about giving a glimpse of the tragedy as a whole.
Without exonerating the killers, he explains the transition of a young Abertzale, who plans to join the group as a kind of adventure with his friend, then sinks into a personal progressive hell Is the story sometimes as equidistant as it seems?And for many He’s too generous to someone who shot someone in the neck, kids or executed after days of kidnapping.
Gabilondo takes the viewer to a small community and shows what it’s like to live under threat and how a lasting friendship between families can turn into hate. Political ideology involves both sides and seems to dehumanize relationships.
The role of Miren is particularly touching, a mother who, however sympathetic to her son, seems indifferent to him. In antithesis, we have his daughter Arantxa (Loreto Mauleón) who, with a courageous vision, demonstrates that what is Truly revolutionary and transgressive is humanity towards others, and continues to arouse good feelings, even when life constantly strikes you. Arantxa is the gap by which hope seeps into the homeland.
A series that speaks less than we think of who we are, pieces of stories determined by a context that can sometimes bring out the worst in us, and which also raises the question of how many have been able to adopt or support terrorism?Can one ideology blind us to the point of killing, threatening, kidnapping, or attempting to subjugate the other?Why don’t we still know the identity of the killers who haven’t been identified yet, and we haven’t heard at least one?Executioners?