Giant

Martin returns to his village from the First Carlist War. A farmhouse in Gipuzkoa, an old father and a brother. His brother Joaquín has grown strangely; through the war his height kept increasing and it is still increasing. Nobody in the village knows this is an illness. Martin has an idea: he will take his brother to the fairs and they will make money. They set out. First villages, then cities, then Europe. Joaquín goes on stage and the audience pays to see how tall he is. He keeps growing and his body cannot bear it. Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi direct. Eneko Sagardoy plays Joaquín and Joseba Usabiaga plays Martin. It is a Basque production and the film is in Basque. The man behind the narrative is real: an extraordinarily tall man who lived in the village of Altzo in the nineteenth century was exhibited across Europe and appeared before royalty. The film was nominated in many categories at the Goya awards in Spain and won several. The matter it works at is difference turned into commerce; the narrative does not build the older brother as a one dimensional exploiter and keeps the bond between them. The visual work was designed to build the difference in height realistically; the effects do not show and the scale works inside the scene. The Basque countryside of the period is reconstructed in detail and the use of language is part of the narrative. The ending is not sentimental; the narrative shows plainly who kept the earnings. Who it is for: anyone curious about period drama and Basque cinema. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the narrative episodic, and the last section heavy.