The 13 Roses

The civil war is ending and Franco's forces are entering Madrid. Thirteen young women, most of them eighteen or twenty, are arrested for belonging to a youth organisation. Their offence is almost nothing; they attended a few meetings, handed out a few leaflets. They are tied to an assassination attempt; they had no connection to it, but the trial is rushed. In their cell they support one another, write letters, sing. The verdict comes fast. Emilio Martinez Lazaro directs. Pilar Lopez de Ayala, Veronica Sanchez, Marta Etura and Gabriella Pession are in the cast. It is a Spanish and Italian co-production. The film rests on a real event; thirteen women were shot on 5 August 1939 against the walls of the Almudena cemetery in Madrid. The film was nominated for best film and best director at the 22nd Goya Awards. The matter it treats is a punishment that continues after the war is over; the death sentence rests not on a real crime but on a symbolic revenge. The film does not draw the thirteen women all alike; each has her own life, her own story. The narrative shows cell life in detail and brings solidarity forward. The last letters are its most remembered passage and rest on real documents. The narrative gives the trial process as fast and arbitrary. The ending closes with the execution. Its limit is weight; the narrative is very painful, the outcome known from the start, and it is difficult to watch. Who it is for: viewers who like the postwar period of the Spanish civil war and films of testimony. Who it is not for: it is very painful, hopeless, and the ending inevitable.