Set in Barcelona’s Modelo 77 – built in the 1800s and only closed a few years ago, Alberto Rodriguez’s film is inspired by real events from the late 1970s. The picture it paints comes across as so authentic that you could be watching a docudrama rather than a tale of fictional characters.
It opens with young accountant Manuel (Miguel Herran) incarcerated while awaiting trial – a trial with no date in the foreseeable future. His boss has made a complaint that he embezzled a large sum of money, Manuel insists the boss is covering for his son.
It doesn’t take too long for Manuel to incur the wrath of the “Blisters”, the prison guards who rule with their batons and no concern for the prisoners, regardless of what crimes they may or may not have committed. He makes a complaint to the governor, only to find that the response is a violent visit from the guards that ensures he won’t do that again.
Gradually he makes friends with some of his fellow inmates, including Boni (Xavi Saez), a doctor who is there due to his homosexuality, and Pino (an outstanding Javier Gutierrez) who has been there so long whatever crime he committed seems to have faded from living memory.
They guide him on how to survive day to day life, who can be trusted and which gangs to avoid. This also makes the point that while the treatment of the inmates is unnecessarily brutal and inhumane, leading to a dehumanising effect on the prisoners, there are some within the walls who may deserve to be locked away from society. Just not under these conditions.
The months turn into years, and Manuel still awaits his trial, his only contact with the outside world being Lucia (Catalina Sopelana) his girlfriend’s sister and his only visitor. But there is a gradual groundswell of support for a union for prisoners, an association trying to establish a protocol of human rights against the odds. This organisation, COPEL, sought to establish basic improvements such as the provision of decent food and an end to the beatings routinely handed out by the guards. They also fought to bring in amnesty or pardons for political prisoners, and prison protests, from sit-ins and hunger strikes to riots helped to raise outside awareness of living conditions in the jails.
When the attempts to get these measures adopted into law fail, the film takes a turn that moves the story away from the documentary-style approach for the final stages, and introduces something that has been missing – an element of suspense as Manuel, Pino and their allies decide that the only way they will ever get out of the hole they’re in is to dig themselves out of it.
Will they find a happy ending? I’m not about to reveal what happens, that would only detract from your appreciation of an engrossing cinematic experience. I suggest you take the opportunity to find out for yourselves.
Jim Welsh
Radio Summerhall Arts 