Writer: Daniel Cebrián
Director: Imanol Uribe
Llegaron de noche (What Lucía Saw) pays tribute to the astonishing bravery and dignity of ordinary people who find themselves trying to behave decently while in the grasp of indecent but powerful people.
The story is told by way of flashbacks and opens by putting the audience in the confused position of witnessing Lucía Barrera de Cerna (Juana Acosta) and her husband Jorge (Juan Carlos Martínez) entering Miami to be greeted by FBI officers who, despite offering assurances, skilfully separate the couple from the priests travelling with them. Over a lengthy period Lucía and Jorge are subjected to interrogation and petty terrors such as sleep and food deprivation. The objective, it becomes apparent, is not to determine what they witnessed but to get them to deny the truth.
Flashbacks establish in 1989 instability caused by the Salvadoran civil war force Lucía and Jorge to leave their village. Lucía is a cleaner at the Central American University and the Jesuit priests who act as teachers show practical Christian charity by offering the couple sanctuary and letting them stay at residences in the university. One night six of the priests are slaughtered and graffiti implicates the guerrillas but Lucía overhears gunfire and witnesses government soldiers leaving the premises. As the United States supports the Salvadoran government, the FBI have a vested interest in getting Lucía to change her mind about what she saw.
Director Imanol Uribe is sincere in paying tribute to the murdered priests. Without hesitation they offer Lucía practical, but from her viewpoint lifesaving, assistance as if the matter is of no consequence. They go to their deaths with dignity offering prayers and their lives to God. They are, however, naïve in not recognising the danger of lecturing students whose parents work for the military. One priest declares if they are killed in the daytime, it will be by the guerrillas, at night it will be the army.
Juana Acosta gives the perfect depiction of an ordinary person caught up in events beyond her control but still trying to do the right thing. Her expressive careworn face captures the exhaustion that comes from too little sleep and too much fear.
The FBI agents in the film represent the banality of evil -performing evil deeds without evil intentions. The FBI interrogators behave like shallow bureaucrats, just doing their jobs without any empathy for those whose lives they are ruining.
Uribe deliberately takes a non-sensational approach to the subject. The stetting is an ordinary office building rather than a torture chamber or police cell. However, rather than creating a Kafkaesque environment in which Lucía and Jorge are overwhelmed by the sheer illogicality or ridiculous nature of the situation Uribe sticks rigidly to a low-key mundane approach.
The interrogation techniques to which Lucía and Jorge are subjected amount to little more than verbal harassment and extreme boredom. There is no doubt these will work – dripping water will eventually erode a stone- but they are not dramatic. Playwrights Pinter and Dorfman have produced terrifying works set in repressive regimes employing torture, but both have employed exaggeration to make the point. The approach taken by Uribe may be authentic but is dull to watch, wearying instead of frightening. The audience is educated as to the alternate ways in which repressive regimes operate but do not become emotionally involved.
While the respect shown to the priests and witnesses in Llegaron de noche is sincere the lack of drama makes what ought to be a call-to-arms more of an occasionally tedious educational experience.
The Viva Festival runs at HOME in Manchester 10th– 30th March 2023
