Salvador (2006) User Reviews (11)

Realistic Story + Perfect Drama

[sempreendavant · 6/10 · 2 October 2006]

This movie is in fact two movies. The first one tells Salvador Puig Antich's life. Explains how he became involved in the resistance against Franco dictatorship and his beginnings in the criminal life. This way, the movie doesn't try to make him look like a saint, because he wasn't, and at the same time justifies him somehow, realistically showing the cruelty and repression that take place in the last years of Franco's life.

The other movie tells Salvador's last 12 hours. The relationship with his family, his friends and his enemies. And his cruel execution. This part is 100% Drama, and very well made one. Its almost 45 minutes of holding tears, jumping from a touching scene to a more touching one. Some of the weak points of the first part are finally justified to help this last devastating dramatization.

The main actors make a great job, specially Leonardo Sbaraglia, Daniel Brühl and Tristán Ulloa. Although the last one sounds a little too weird when he talks Catalan. The main problem of the movie is that the plot isn't thick enough. It tells a simple story of a simple boy and don't get to fully explore the characters minds. But it gets close.

great movie!!!

[ilaria-5 · 8/10 · 27 December 2006]

I was really caught by the story - a story which I didn't know, and which is hardly known outside Spain and even Catalogne, as the director explained in a festival here in Italy where the film was presented. The last years of life of Salvador Puig Antich, the Spanish anarchic activist, who became the last prisoner of the Franchist regime to be executed. The rhythm is fantastic, energetic and dynamic, thanks to a very suggestive photography and the use of vivid images. The music supports the high tone of the events. The last part involves the spectator in a "crescendo" of emotions, slowing down the rhythm while approaching to the inevitable end. No political claims, no moralistic lessons. A well shot, thrilling, emotional movie!

very naive

[sal_paradise · 23 March 2007]

i can't help wondering what the point of this film pamphlet was. it seemed to veer towards naive heroism in the beginning and at the end again, meanwhile completely neglecting a discussion of what set these people apart from other 'normal' terrorists. and then we get a subplot of the last death penalty dealt in Spain with this kid who of course doesn't deserve to be murdered at the hands of the state, but who does really. it fails on this level as well as a level of human relationship, using the story of the guard merely to make a point of how the revolution lives on.

so i felt really ambiguous and detached from the film, which seemed so uncommitted to an involved and deep discussion of its story.

unnecessary display of violence

[llanero · 6/10 · 24 June 2007]

I don't disagree with the view that the subject is quite appropriate for a movie but displays quite gruesome violence, almost senseless for an artistic product. The scenes leading to the execution of the sentence are particularly distressing are particularly lengthy, the sentence itself is really perturbing for such a kind of movie. Other than that the movie is supposed to accurately reflect the violent times around 1970 in the Western World, and hopefully does achieve that target. Have to admit that, however, good acting and good direction are displayed throughout the movie, the main weakness of the movie can be found in the script only.

Time travel into Spanish Democratical Transition

[enricopg · 9/10 · 15 September 2006]

By watching Salvador you can move less than thirty years back and discover or remember, depending on your age, Spain during the latest days of Franco's regime. Those were times where things were changing, but to some others of them it had to take longer.

Salvador Puig Antich will be forever remembered as the last person to be executed in Spain. In the movie, the anarchist Puig Antich is played by the German actor Daniel Brühl. The fact that his mother is Spanish allows him to act speaking in both Spanish and Catalan. Nonetheless, one of the greatest achievements of the film is that it shows how both languages are used in Catalonia. Daniel Brühl's performance is flawless, you could sense his fears, passions,...

The rest of the cast, including Leonardo Sbaraglia or Leonor Watling among many others, adds up quality to the film.

"Salvador" is a great movie. 9 / 10.

The cruelty of one of Europe's last dictatorships

[Lola33 · 9/10 · 5 February 2007]

I was lucky to get into a screening of "Salvador" at a German film festival and saw it with English subtitles. This movie transports us back in time to the era of the Spanish Franco dictatorship. Yet, it's not so much a history lesson as a universal plea against death penalty – one of the most powerful ones that I've ever seen in cinema. The film tells the story of Salvador Puig Antich, one of the last political prisoners to be murdered by the Franco regime in 1974. Salvador certainly isn't an innocent victim. He is an anarchist involved in armed bank robberies and when they finally catch him, a policeman dies in a shootout. However, he never receives a fair trial and the method of execution they apply for him is nothing short of barbaric. The garrotte, once a standard device for execution in Spain, resembles a medieval torture instrument where the delinquent is strangled with an iron collar. Salvador's execution is shown in the movie, but it isn't done in a sensationalist way. Much more haunting to watch is the period before it happens – the desperate tries to save Salvador's life by his lawyer and the last visits by his sisters. It's largely thanks to the protagonist that the film works so well on the emotional level. Daniel Brühl, one of the finest actors working in Europe today, is wonderful when it comes to convey the feelings of the doomed young prisoner. He says more with only a look or a small raise of an eyebrow than many an actor could with a long speech. The scenes when Salvador realizes that he'll be facing death, when he bids farewell to his sisters and first sees the murderous machine are especially powerful and exquisitely acted. By then, of course, you'll be in tears already, like the rest of the cinema.

To cast Daniel Brühl (who is half Spanish and speaks the language perfectly) as Salvador certainly was a brilliant coup by director Manuel Huerga. The star of such German gems as "Good Bye Lenin!" and "The Edukators" here makes a triumphant debut in Spanish cinema. After this performance, even more doors should be open for him throughout Europe. The rest of the cast is also very good, especially Leonardo Sbaraglia as the prison guard who gradually develops something like a friendship with Salvador. If you get the chance, go and see this movie. And bring tissues!

It's important to remember recent history, in order not to repeat mistakes

[gabiurbon · 8/10 · 8 October 2006]

I've seen this film today, and although I wouldn't say it's great film wise, I think it's important for people to know about recent history, especially Spaniards. I'm totally against death penalty, and this film has only reassured me in the matter. But I must say the film is somehow partial, as Salvador was in fact a bank robber, no matter what he used the money for. The acting is quite impressive. I must confess I wasn't too convinced about Daniel playing Salvador, as he's German, but he's great. Tristán Ulloa is also very good, and he speaks really good Catalán, sounding native although he's actually Galician (north west Spain). And finally Leonardo Sbaraglia plays an impressive policeman. Incredibly, you forget he's an Argentinian sex symbol and does a really good Spanish accent.Also, I may be a bit impartial myself, since I know the sister of one of Salvador friends in the film and about the family suffer...

Immensely strong

[LazySod · 9/10 · 2 April 2007]

In 1974 the young anarchistic bank-robber Salvador Puig Antich is executed after spending some time in jail. His death starts a period of unrest in Spain, at that time still ruled by the dictator Franco. That unrest is the beginning of democracy in Spain.

This film plays the last months in the life of Salvador. It gives a short insight into his life, his why and what and the choices he makes. It then rolls on to his time in jail and all that follows.

Biographic pictures like this one stand or fall with the capability of the actors to play their real life counterparts convincingly. This film stands. It does a very good job at dramatizing the actual events and left me with a giant lump in my throat.

9 out of 10 accidental heroes.

Poor Tribute

[EduardoFS · 4/10 · 23 November 2006]

I was disappointed with this film. The first half is boring, unengaging and very poorly shot. The nervous hand-held camera and the fast editing are very irritating, and completely unnecessary. It really put me off. It might seem very cool and trendy, and you can tell the director might have shot lots of music videos and commercial spots, but it's poor storytelling. Cause it doesn't allow you to sink your heart into the film, to feel it. It might be appropriate for films like Moulin Rouge, but not for a drama like this. There's no depth in the construction of the characters, and there is nothing special about Salvador's character, there's nothing about him that makes his tragic death special save for the fact that it is horrendously brutal. We don't get to know his foibles, his weaknesses, his dreams. It's funny how the death of the protagonist of 'Dead Man Walking' -a true murderer- is far more moving and affecting than this one. And the second half is more engaging, although it has a TV movie feel to it. Leonardo Sbaraglia's character is the most interesting of them all, the only one who has some kind of evolution arc. But even the ending, which could so easily have been powerful and touching, given the extent of the tragedy, is somehow rendered bland and anticlimactic, due to the intercutting of a sentimental scene in which the youngest sister runs to the place where the execution is going to take place while we overhear in voice-over the corny words that Salvador dedicated to her the last time she saw him,and also due to poor camera-work at the moment of the execution. Again the camera can't stand still and starts going in unjustified circles in a moment where we should all be holding our breaths.

great movie, great acting

[fruizd1 · 8/10 · 16 September 2006]

I just saw the movie tonight at Club Coliseum in Barcelona, and it was fantastic to see how people resisted the dictatorship until the end of Franco's days.

If it wouldn't be for people like Salvador Puig Antich, we wouldn't have democracy until 10 years later, I think he was a real hero that fought for democracy.

The last scene of Salvador Puig dying in "El Garrote Vil" is very hard, I cant believe it happened in my country in 1974. Daniel Brühl is a great actor, like he demonstrated in Good Bye Lenin, I think that being trilingual helps him a lot.

Go and see this movie now.

Ghost from the very near past

[leftbanker-1 · 8/10 · 5 August 2015]

A hand grenade of a film from one of the truly dark moments in 20th century Spanish history but Salvador goes way beyond a bio-pic. For me the finest moment in the movie was when his guard reads the letter he had written to his father and in those words he sees that his prisoner is a man of flesh and blood capable of feelings and consciousness.

What the movie really is about is the inhumanity of capital punishment and how it is used as a political tool, a tool of vengeance which is something that any modern judicial system must avoid at all cost. The garrote device used in the execution is just about the most horrible thing I've ever seen. I am 100% positive that he couldn't have been breathing or alive at the end. This type of strangulation results in death in seconds.

Brilliant acting all around and I completely believed every second of the story. It all seems like so long ago but it happened in my lifetime. In Spanish and Catalan. My Catalan is lousy as no one speaks it here. I learn more Catalan in a week in Barcelona than I do all year here in Valencia.

On a negative note the last 20 minutes of the film dragged on way too long.