Writer and Director: Manu Gomez
At the height of ETA’s terror campaign in 1985 Euskadi (Basque Country) the summer holidays beckon for 12-year-olds Marcos, José, Toni and Paquito. But there are no carefree days at the beach for these kids of immigrant parents, who moved to the industrial town of Mondragon to escape the poverty that blighted much of Franco’s Spain. Instead, they spend their days roaming the grimy, graffiti-covered streets, collecting the police rubber bullets fired at protestors calling for the return of jailed ETA members to the homeland.
For writer and director Manu Gomez, this is a love letter to his hometown, a turbulent childhood played out against a bloody backdrop of drugs, violence and the AIDS epidemic. In a post-show Q&A, he refers to the era as a bad time for big brothers, many of whom died in cruel ways – to car bombs, overdoses or the wasting effects of AIDS. And the beauty of this touching yet quietly powerful film is that it confronts these heavyweight issues with a light touch, through the kids’ eyes.
This also goes for the parents, whose attempts to integrate into a society which regards them as outsiders is tragi-comic, but always generous and moving. The kids of course feel Basque – despite not speaking the native tongue (Euskera) – and just want to get on with being young and having fun. And the power of their friendship shines through the darker moments.
Asier Flores plays Marcos, the accident-prone cyclist of the director’s youth, whose disastrous efforts on the local racing team is a constant worry for his struggling parents, played by Marian Álvarez and Luis Callejo. Alongside him, Aitor Calderón’s Toni is the loner of the group, left to wander the streets with his dog, Blackie, by an absent mother and drug-addicted brother, Maserati (Arón Piper).
Hugo García plays the studious José Antonio, who worships his big brother, Felix (Yon González), whose dissatisfaction at his family’s failure has led him to the door of ETA. Completing the quartet is Miguel Rivera’s spectacled geek, Paquito, who sees the exotic Cuban girl in the flat across the street as a way to avoid his father’s cringeworthy attempts to fit in – including an ill-fitting Basque beret.
They do occasionally escape the suffocation of their troubled families, pooling their pesetas in one scene to rent a porno from the local video shop. And the moments when they are together offer magical glimpse of how it was growing up as the kid brothers of Spain’s lost generation, backed by a punk soundtrack of the director’s favourite songs.
The four friends handle many of the divisive issues of the day with naiveté and enthusiasm – like weighing the softer rubber bullets of the local police and claiming they are designed not to hurt the locals as much as the harder rounds of the Guardia Civil.
As failure, tragedy and heartbreak strike, school breaks up for summer, but life goes on and we leave the boys a little older and wiser, just on the verge of teendom. It is a bittersweet and touching story – an affectionate look back at bygone age by one of its survivors.
Érase una vez en Euskadi is screening at the as part of Viva! 28th Spanish & Latin American Festival at HOME, Manchester, on 1 and 3 April
