Fiesta

The year is 1936. Rafael is sixteen years old and goesto a strict Catholic school in France. He is the son of a Spanish nobleman and when the Spanish Civil War begins he is asked to come home to take part in the war and fight on Franco's and the government's side.Rafael's father is a high-ranking officer who believes that his son has to defend the family honor in the war. In order to harden Rafael before battle, the father sends him to a certain colonel Masagual, played by a magnificent Jean-Louis Trintignant, who is in charge of a unit which has the sole task of executing enemies who are held captive. Colonel Masagual is an elderly, slightly effeminate, morphine-dependent, decrepit man. He is a cynic who has made war his life. Masagual takes the young Rafael under his wing in order to prepare him for battle in his own way. After only a couple of days in the unit Rafael becomes a member of his first firing squad. Naturally this first intimate brush with death comes as a shock to the sixteen-year-old. A day or so later a priest stands in front of Rafael's squad. The priest, with his pride and courage, has impressed everybody, including the colonel. Rafael believes the priest's death sentence to be patently absurd, however the colonel is steadfast and the execution is carried out. One day when the colonel gives an order to execute a young girl, whose father is a leader of the resistance movement, Rafael has had enough. Fiesta is both a cruel and beautiful film where a young man is transformed from being an ordinary, slightly spoiled, school boy into a disillusioned soldier within days. When Rafael, played by Gregoire Colin (the young monk in Before the Rain, 1994), goes to the front-line there is still a trace of idealism within him. Against this idealism stands Colonel Masagual's barren soul, the product of many years in the service of war. He has become a cold cynic, who knows that what he does is wrong but who continues with his craft, employed by death. The story is based on an autobiographical novel by Jose Luis de Vilallonga, and is set during the Spanish Civil War. The madness of war in general, and civil war in particular, is the focal point for the director Boutron: ''Civil wars are nothing more than a gigantic settling of accounts, disguised, as always, as the defense of 'the just cause'.''. JS

Premiärstatus
Nordisk premiär: Medverkande
Jean-Louis Trintignant, Gregoire Colin, Marc Lavoine: Producent
Michel Chambat: Manus
Pierre Boutron, based on the autobiography by Jose-Luis de Vilallonga: Foto
Javier Aguirresarobe: Musik
Wim Mertens: Talat språk
English subs