jessicacoco2005 The film is a love story set amidst the Spanish Civil War just before the bombing of the Spanish city of Guernica. In 1937 German airplanes bombed the city; killings over 1,600 and reducing the city to ashes. The bombing was immortalizing that same year in Picasso's famous painting.The film suffers from poor direction, wooden performances, and a script which is both confusing and unfocused; featuring an implausible love story that's tacked on to make the "historical" part of the film more personal.The film is pure fascist propaganda; produced to vilify the democratically-elected Republican government. The film attempts to blame the causalities of the bombing on the Republic's news censorship; Shifting the blame away from the Germans. In essence blaming the victims. However, the Spanish government had no prior knowledge that the Germans planned to raze the city of Guernica to the ground. The Nazis didn't advertise their war plans. German Nazi soldiers are depicted as ordinary men just carrying out orders; while the democratically-elected Republican government officials are shown as evil, devious men beholden to the Soviet Union setting up innocent people for incarceration and torture.The Republic needed every man and woman it could use to fight the Fascists. The barbarians were literally at the gates. It had no time or interest incarcerating innocent people when real enemies of the state existed; paid mercenaries known as 5th columnists trying to take down the country from the inside. Many young men throughout the world volunteered to serve in Spain; fighting to save the world from Fascism, such as the Abraham Lincoln brigades from the US. This film is an affront, not only to the democratically-elected government of the Republic in Spain, but to the thousands who fought and the thousands who died fighting against Fascism. Long live the memory of the Spanish Republic!

lavatch The goal of the film was to put a human face on the tragedy of Guernica, the market town in Northern Spain that was destroyed by German bombers during the Spanish Civil War. Unfortunately, the romantic narrative was far-fetched, and the dialogue was often strained in this labored, slow-paced drama.The filmmakers were successful in conveying the complexity of the Spanish Civil War. The opposition of the fascist "loyalists" supporting Franco versus the "republicans," who were allied with Stalin, was well presented. But the film failed to convey the idealism of the Republicans. It was the passion of the Republicans to preserve their government against a military coup that captivated the world in the 1930s. Yet the passion was inexplicably missing in the film.The main character was an American journalist named Howell, who was evidently modeled on the British writer George Steer who broke the story of the atrocities at Guernica. But Steer, along with other like-minded writers like Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, also witnessed the passion of ordinary people resisting the forces of fascism in the 1930s. Where was the passion in this film?The character of Teresa, who was a censor, was essential for demonstrating the uses of propaganda. But her character did not demonstrate to Howell why the cause of the Spanish Civil War was important in taking a stand against European fascism. The filmmakers seemed unaware of how important it was in the 1930s to resist another nation turning to fascism. That SHOULD have been the main focus of this drama.In the final analysis, the romantic intrigue was not compelling or believable. And despite the beautiful photography of Northern Spain, the true soul of the nation was not captured in "Guernica."

Tom Dooley James D'Arcy plays an American journalist who is stationed in Guernica in 1937. The German Condor Legion is active and the war is raging all around, but the Republic have strict orders to only allow good new3s out and as such all journalists are censored to the point of mere mouths for propaganda. Meanwhile he sort of falls for Teresa who is one of the censors, but her Soviet boss, Vasyl (Jack Davenport) is also romantically committed to her and does not take kindly to the dalliance. We also have the brilliant Burn Gorman playing a NKVD agent who is deliciously ruthless (great piece of casting too) and he brings some welcome spice to the proceedings. What follows are the events that put Guernica on the map – 'for all the wrong reasons'.This is a really well made film with some great performances (accents aside) and high class CGI and a nice attention to detail. The love interest is good but not really going to be legendary and some could say that the bombing was under done, but I found it to be about right – we don't need loads of screen time of people suffering to make the point. In English, Castilian, Basque and some German with good to average sub titles, this is a film that is very much worth checking out.

procletnic Guernica could have been one of my all time favorites but unfortunately, as it happens too often these days, the culmination was badly executed. The first act is wonderful, a perfect setup for the upcoming events in the movie, with breathtaking cinematography, decent script and superb acting. The sets and the costumes were top notch, whoever could pull this off with 5 million deserves utmost respect. The first 30 minutes really feel like you're watching one of those great classics and I was pretty convinced that this movie is going to be ten star material. Unfortunately, as the movie progresses past the second act, it starts to lose its charms. The focus turns on the love story, which somehow manages to be underdeveloped, despite the huge screen time that it has. From there on, we have a cascading chain of blatant clichés which, combined with a final act that feels disjointed, really ruin the whole experience. Now if you pay attention, you'll notice that the final act is where we lose the German perspective. A scene on a bomber, a pilot reaction or even the German colonel watching the ongoing bombardment from a far would've kept this perspective alive and could've added some needed dramatic effect. Instead, the focus falls entirely on the events occurring in Guernica, which wouldn't be so bad if the whole act wasn't filled with severely overused clichés. All in all, this is a pretty decent war drama, which could've been something really special, had the writers come up with more original ideas.