David Trueba makes a lot more sense of the novel than did Javier Cercas when he wrote it. The novel is like an endless loop of the author telling the story of how the fascist Rafael Sánchez-Mazas escaped execution. In the novel, this brief historical episode is repeated endlessly, to the point of it being maddeningly repetitive. The film spares us this repetition just as the fascist's life was spared.
The pity was that the fascist Rafael Sánchez-Mazas didn't die in a firing squad. The typical path of cowards is to foment war and then conveniently side-step and actual combat. Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, George Bush are only a few modern examples.
The movie, like the book, chronicles a reporter's investigation into how the above-mention fascist escaped a firing squad in the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, and the story about how a Republican soldier spared his life when he was discovered in the woods near the site of the failed execution. Why did the soldier not kill or capture the fascist? I don't find that a particularly interesting question, certainly not enough for a novel, bit almost enough for a decent film.
The pity was that the fascist Rafael Sánchez-Mazas didn't die in a firing squad. The typical path of cowards is to foment war and then conveniently side-step and actual combat. Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, George Bush are only a few modern examples.
The movie, like the book, chronicles a reporter's investigation into how the above-mention fascist escaped a firing squad in the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, and the story about how a Republican soldier spared his life when he was discovered in the woods near the site of the failed execution. Why did the soldier not kill or capture the fascist? I don't find that a particularly interesting question, certainly not enough for a novel, bit almost enough for a decent film.