It must be recognized that when HBO comes out with a good series, it comes out delicious. Homeland, a Spanish-Latin American production, based on the best-seller of the same name by Fernando Aramburu, masterfully captures the two sides of the ETA conflict: that of the victims of the terrorist group and that of the relatives whose children and acquaintances left their lives behind to enroll in the Euskal Herria cause as a political project and ended up staining their hands with blood.
The magnetism of two women
The history of Patria is the story of two families. One on the side of the victims and the other on the side of the ETA sympathizers. To Bitto (Elena Iruteta) and look (Ane Gabarain) They are the matriarchs and visible heads of those two sides.
with his role, exemplify these two irreconcilable and antagonistic positions. Each one with her own vision of pain – as a wife or mother – and a different way of appreciating the facts based on her place in the conflict and her socioeconomic situation..
Bittori is more detached. He faces his grief by distancing himself from everyone, even from their children; Conversely, Look, it's more passionate, more complaining, survives by feeding its flame. But both share the common link that characterizes the way of being of the people of the north..
The interpretation of both is so genuine, that you stay glued to the screen every time one of them appears. Without a doubt they are the engine of the series.
A generous narrative
Despite the controversies on Twitter who accuse this story of being partisan, Aramburu's story not only attempts to empathize with the side of ETA victims, but rather brings the viewer closer to the motivations that could have led a group of ordinary boys to enroll in a violent campaign and end up killing in the name of a political cause.. For me this is the most interesting because it tries to heal an open wound from respect..
To condemn terrorist acts we do not need a fictional series. It's obvious. But Patria shows us how many of these children who abandoned their parents, throwing his life overboard, Most of them were pawns who were brainwashed by other “brains”. This is evidenced by the character of Gorka (Miren's son) when he says that once Euskal Herria is free what he wants is to retire to the peace of the countryside and have a quiet life.
This is fiction, but in reality, how many like him, until now peaceful people, They made the fatal mistake of daring to kill for a cause that not even they themselves could understand.? Only moved by the grafted hatred of those who spoke to them of an oppressive movement that sought to destroy their culture and the Basque language..
There is no turning back
As I said, Homeland not only shows the pain of the victims. It also gives the opportunity to show the other side of the coin.: how the police and civil guard responded brutally against what they considered an inhuman scourge, whether it was in a search of a suspicious home or in the way of interrogating detainees.
Miren suffers and prays to Saint Ignatius to have mercy on her and her son in prison. But in his eagerness to defend his firstborn, justifies the unjustifiable. look the other way, spurred on by the like-minded members around her in the town (represented by the figure of the parish priest, among others) and does not recognize the damage caused to what was her own friend for many years.
With the narration of this conflict, We can see that even on the other side a very high price was also paid. They paid for it, yes, those who had the least blame: the relatives. And we see that, in many cases, before joining the band, Its members were ordinary people with a family and a sociocultural background similar to that of its victims.. They were not supervillains from a video game or monsters created in a laboratory. They were people like you and me.
Unfortunately one day these people decided to take a path with no turning back.. A path in which they planted terror, unnecessary fear and death. Against their own neighbors. Against other human beings. All for the germ of an idea.
Y, francamente, this is what makes me most sad.
