The Sleeping Voice

November 1940. The war is over and the new regime in Spain is settling accounts. Pepita comes to Madrid from the village; her sister Hortensia is in a women's prison and pregnant. Hortensia is under sentence of death and the execution will follow the birth. Every week Pepita goes to the bars, takes laundry and carries messages. Her sister's husband is hiding in the hills and Pepita makes that contact too. She wants to keep out of politics and has no other way; every week she is drawn a little further in. Benito Zambrano directs and adapted the script from a novel by Dulce Chacon. Inma Cuesta, Maria Leon, Marc Clotet and Daniel Holguin are in the cast. It is a Spanish production. The film took awards at the Goyas in Spain; Maria Leon was named best new actress. The novel rests on the testimony of women imprisoned after the war. The matter it treats is the women's prison; the film recalls how little that part of Spain's history has been told. The narrative sets the two sisters against each other; one is political and the other is not, and the regime puts them in the same place. The film shows torture and execution directly. The women in the prison are not drawn all alike; both solidarity and betrayal are inside the story. The narrative moves heavily and gives no scrap of hope. The ending ties to a baby. Its limit is weight; the narrative is painful, the scenes hard, and it is difficult to watch. Who it is for: viewers who like Spanish historical drama and stories of testimony. Who it is not for: it is heavy, harsh, and the ending bitter.