Is the film 'La infiltrada' about ETA terrorism as accurate as some people say?

In recent days I have read very positive reviews about the Spanish film "La infiltrada" (The infiltrator), which deals with ETA terrorism.

An excellent documentary by Iñaki Arteta about Gregorio Ordóñez, murdered by ETA in 1995
'27 Minutes', an excellent short film about one of the crimes committed by ETA terrorists

This feature film, directed by Arantxa Echevarría, recently won the Goya Award for Best Film. In addition, its lead actress, Carolina Yuste, won the award for Best Actress. I am not going to discuss the film's cinematic merits. I have no doubt that it has them, as did other films that did not convince me for various reasons.

Obviously, being a film that talks about ETA terrorism, I cannot stay in the cinematographic aspects, in the same way that I would not limit myself to evaluating those aspects when talking about a film dedicated to the Holocaust. Spain suffered decades of ETA terrorism, a terrorism that left 853 people murdered, including 22 children and babies, in addition to more than 2,600 people injured and mutilated, almost 90 people kidnapped and 180,000 Basques expelled from their land by separatist terror. In the face of all this horror, the response of Spanish cinema has been rather disappointing.

Leaving aside the excellent films of Iñaki Arteta and a few other exceptions, Spanish cinema has dealt less with ETA terrorism than with the much more distant Civil War, and when it has done so it has often been to give a dire view of what happened, in which it seems that there were good and bad on both "sides".

Certainly, "La infiltrada" shows the kind of fanatics that exist in ETA and its surroundings, and I use the present tense because that world still exists, its political arm is still very active and ETA admirers continue to use violence to prevent others from exercising their rights (you can ask any member of Vox in the Basque provinces and Navarra about this).

However, this film confirms the saying that "the devil is in the details." At this point, I must warn you that I am going to refer to some of the film's content, so if anyone wants to see it, it is better to stop reading here.

In "La infiltrada" we see details that I didn't like at all. For example, police commanders who consider other police officers to be expendable. In one scene, an ETA sympathiser cries inconsolably because one of her coreligionists - she says - was arrested and tortured and a girl was supposedly raped (remember that ETA instructed its terrorists to report false tortures and even to cause self-harm). We don't see that same crybaby celebrating, as many of those fanatics did, every murder perpetrated by ETA. Whoever wants to see it, it's better to stop reading here.

We also see a terrorist who seems like a nice guy, with whom the protagonist even has sexual relations, which are not shown explicitly. This terrorist who seems like such a nice guy confesses to the undercover agent that he shot a prison officer, without killing him, and then kicked him on the ground when his gun jammed. As a counterpoint, another ETA terrorist appears who is rude, ill-mannered and sexist (although he is Galician).

The part I liked the least was the scene of Gregorio Ordóñez's murder. The film shows the crime with great crudeness. Good in this sense. But just before, we see the murdered man in the restaurant saying "the party pays" (we deduce that he is referring to the food), as if he were another politician, when Gregorio was brave, a man of principles and an admirable person.

We also see Basque policemen hitting the protagonist without any reason, thus transmitting the discourse of the ETA environment about the Police. As for the National Police, the agents are better represented than in other films, but we see scenes of rivalry with the Civil Guard that do not make much sense, such as police commanders showing their anger because the Civil Guards have caught ETA terrorists, as if the arrests of these bloodthirsty criminals were not a cause for celebration among all the officials.

Honestly, I didn't find the film to be at all criticisable (there are positive things, especially when compared to other feature films about ETA terrorism), but I think we're satisfied with very little if we see in "La infiltrada" a very good film about ETA. Spain has lived through decades of terror caused by fanatics who wanted to break our national unity by means of bombs and shots to the back of the head, and the story of that horror deserves something better, more forceful and more carefully detailed.

I leave you here with the trailer of the film (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):