Patria (2020)
9/10
making history of pain
21 August 2021
Terrible miniseries, adapted by Aitor Gabilondo from the book, which they say is very good, "Patria" by Fernando Aramburu.

Two friendly families who later find themselves confronted by ETA terrorism, one because they kill the father of the family, a small businessman who refuses to pay the "revolutionary tax", the other because the eldest son is part of the command that murdered him. .

In a coming and going of 2011 that is the present, with two broken families each in their own way and coping with their dramas and complexes, at the beginning of the 90s with the maelstrom of blood and terror in which the organization had embarked, with many Basques supporting the cause for an independent Euskadi ..

The performances are impeccable (also the makeup work), Bittori (Elena Irureta) the widow dying of cancer, exiled from her own town for being the wife of an "exploitative oligarch" Txato the executed, her son Xabier who could never remake his Life or smile and Nerea, the daughter with bad choices of a partner who can't wait to move and leave everything behind. On the other hand, the Garmendias, Miren (excellent Ane Gabarain) the mother who is invested in the Basque cause, who defends her son above all else; Joxian the somewhat cowardly husband, Joxe Mari the imprisoned ETA member who participated in the attack and it is not known until the last if he was the one who fired, Arantxa married to an anti-ETA and who to top it off suffers a stroke and remains bedridden in wheelchairs and Gorka the gay younger brother.

In 8 episodes it is enough to show those two sides of the same coin, the same Basque society divided between those who wanted independence at all costs, even if it were killing left and right, and those who did not agree, at least in the methods. The other side is also shown, that of the torture of the security forces who were also no saints, even after being imprisoned with that policy of deliberately sending them to prisons far from their villages.

Hard, with an accompanying photograph that never changes the shade of gray, added to a constant rain that apparently is a registered trademark of the area, all filmed in the town of Elgoibar, Guipúzcoa in the heart of the Basque Country. A production that shows hopes, fears, bitterness and the pain of the weight of decisions, an obligatory appointment with history ... another full of HBO.
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