Patxi Bisquert

Synopsis
It’s eight o’clock in the morning in an early seventies summer. Jon, an ETA militant, runs desperately through the streets of the Old Part of San Sebastian, pursued by the police. At that hour, on any given day among thousands, the city wakes up: office workers, housewives, newspaper vendors, waiters serving breakfast, all living their normal lives.
Through his crazy escape, Jon is also going through his own life story at a dizzying pace. The school where they tried to make him give up his identity, the severe yet serene look of his father, the key, the door, the house, the bed, Madelene’s body, her love, the fear of her wounded partner’s death. The fence of persecutors has closed and Jon has finished his career at the feet of a young man he has never seen, to whom nothing binds him. Nothing but a key. And perhaps a common memory.Read More »

Tasio (1984)

Wonderful, simple story of a young lad growing up in his rural surroundings, more or less in the line of `El Sur’, Erice’s little masterpiece produced just two years earlier. Armendáriz achieves an intense and intimate portrait of Tasio and the people around him without any over-dramatization, using simple but effective dialogue, careful characterization, and of course the brilliant photography. Tasio learns to eke out a living making coal, really charcoal-making for domestic use. Wood is piled up into a great heap, maybe three or four metres high and up to eight metres diameter, and set alight in the inside so that it burns very slowly. The `carbonero’ – Tasio – must attend this smouldering heap by climbing up on it and poking and prodding holes deep into it so that there is a minimum of ventilation. You can still find some examples of this old craft in rural parts of Spain even today.Read More »