User Reviews

The film walks along the life of a dark (until this film) character involved in some of the main historical movements of the XX century. In the voice of the people who met him, we know the Spaniard communist who murdered the exiled Soviet leader León Trotski. Mercader (his real last name) was the son of a woman who was one of the main communist leaders in the Spanish Civil War; grows as an immigrant child in the recent born URSS, becomes a Communist warrior and plays as a peon in the confrontation of the ideological (and real) wars of the world until his lonely death in Cuba. The film goes from Spain to Russia, France, US, Mexico and Cuba following the, most of the time, underground life of this singular man. We met in the voice and gestures of his schoolmates, lover's friends, relatives, victim's followers, jail mates, official and unofficial documents, a man who did the dirty (or heroic) work of kill one of the main leaders of the Soviet Revolution. This man sacrifices his entire life as a Soldier of the Revolution with the only pay of a medal and a retirement bonus. Martyr or victim of ideological manipulation? This is a masterful piece of modern history in a documentary film.