Movie Review--The Bastards Fig Tree-The Haunting Of War Brings About Change & Care Of A Fig Tree(On Digital June 4)October Coast

Dark Star Pictures has announced a June 4, 2019, digital release for the Spanish Civil War whimsical comedy The Bastards' Fig Tree.

La higuera de los bastardos (original title)

1h 43min 



Ana Murugarren’s genre-meshing masterpiece provides a fresh, magical exploration of the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, showing both the brutality of war and its ability to inspire hope and change in a broken society. Karra Elejalde stars.

Near the end of the Spanish War, a "trigger happy" fascist soldier turns into a hermit and gets caught up in the care of a fig tree after the look in a ten year old child's eyes, son of one of his victims, awakes in him the certainty that the kid will kill him as soon as he reaches sixteen years of age.



This is one of those movies that when you start it, you cannot stop watching it, like a good novel -it has you in its grasp.

The story is of a group of soldiers during the Spanish War they come across a house with a man and a young boy who has just turned 16. They were told of the man and his boy by a noisy neighbor. They are considered traitors to Spain. They are both taken to a field and executed. 

Prior to their capture, the youngest man of the family is considered a danger to the men as he haunts one of them with his quiet but menacing stare. They feel if he is left alive that he may seek revenge when he becomes a man. They agree that even they do not kill children.

The story evolves into something much more than a revenge film, the young boy buries both his father and brother in a grave. As a marker, he plants a fig bud from a nearby fig tree, in the ground above where their grave is.

Every night the young boy goes and waters the bud, one of the men follows him to the gravesite, armed with a pistol I felt that he was going to take the child out. Upon seeing him take the water bucket and put water on the grave, he feels remorse.

This is where the film takes a twist and really surprises,  because of the guilt that this one soldier feels he becomes a hermit and resides by the tree for the next the rest of his days. 

Having dropped out of the army he watches over the tree, armed with his pistol for the constant noisy neighbor and for anyone else trying to get close to the tree, even a cow that is just grazing and eating some grass.

He then is almost treated like a saint and people find out about what he is doing and go there for prayer meetings and a chance to talk with him. The guilt still built inside, he lashes out and is fearful that harm may come to the tree, he sends them on their way.

His former army soldiers pay him a few visits encouraging him to leave the place as the city has their eyes on the site for a new school. 

The city even offers to move him and the tree and on an even bigger lot, he refuses and only he and his former army soldiers-and the young boy know what secret that tree really holds. It is that reason why this group wants him out as the tree keeps reminding them of the horrors they have committed in their time.



I cannot recommend this movie enough, this is one of the best films I have seen this year and it is one that stays with you for weeks after.

I watched the film almost two weeks ago and it is still this fresh in my mind.

Thank you for reading this

Sincerely 

Anthony Nadeau