AllMovie

The setting for this compelling socio-political drama is the provincial town of Cerromaior during the Spanish Civil War. The gap between the landless peasants and the landed gentry is cavernous and reflected in the barren landscape around the town. An episodic structure illustrates the tensions between the peasants and the landholders. In one sequence, a peasant grabs a club to defend a hapless victim of bourgeois rage, and in another episode a young man in sympathy with the peasants forsakes his wealthy family but is forcibly brought back. A telling event is the 1937 bombing of civilians in the Basque town of Guernica; while the peasants absorb the full meaning of this atrocity, the landowners are busy listening to the results of a soccer match. Director Luis Filipe Rocha is recognized for his commitment to exposing social and political injustice.