22/09/2019 - Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga revisit the horrific plight of the Spanish men who spent years in hiding for fear of Francoist reprisals

The senseless barbarity of the civil war and its legacy — the fascist dictatorship that pummelled Spain for forty years — weighs heavy on Spanish cinema this season. Two contenders in the Official Section of the 67th San Sebastián International Film Festival take us back to this era: the first, Alejandro Amenábar’s While at War [+see also:
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interview: Alejandro Amenábar
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trailer
interview: Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño an…
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interview: Aitor Arregi and Jon Garaño
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Like The Giant, The Endless Trench is unstinting in its meticulous attention to historical detail, although due to the film’s thematic material the majority of scenes take place indoors. While the décor at times seems a little plush for a period ravaged by material and moral privation, overall the film does an admirable job of recreating the physical and mental claustrophobia suffered by its protagonists. The sensitivity shown by the trio of directors in their previous work is much in evidence here, in a story laden with often stifled emotion. Intimate camera work brings us right up close to the central character as we experience his flight, his confinement and his longing for freedom.

The lead is none other than Antonio de la Torre, no stranger to deprivation of sunlight — many readers will remember his turn in A Twelve-Year Night [+see also:
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Skilful sound production (for most of the film’s run, the recluse can only guess at what is happening in the outside world through snatches carried in the air), the lexical device of definitions superimposed on the blacked-out screen that punctuates the narrative and a tone at times reminiscent of a horror film (the fingerprints of co-writer Luiso Berdejo, mastermind of thrillers like Painless [+see also:
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The Endless Trench is a co-production by Irusoin, Moriarti Produkzioak, La Claqueta PC and La Trinchera Film AIE (Spain) together with France’s Manny Films. The production was supported by the ICAA in association with TVE, Netflix, Canal Sur and ETB. Barcelona agency Film Factory Entertainment is managing international sales, and the film will be distributed in Spain by Eone.

(Translated from Spanish)