retrostandard-40079 Review of The Silence of Others

The Silence of Others (2018)

An excellent subject which would have deserved a better treatment

[4/10 · 5 March 2019]

I watched this documentary expecting a sensible and sensitive treatment of an ongoing historically issue. I only had half of that as I was presented with a tear-jerking, ideologically-motivated hitpiece that came off as desperately one-sided. Even the director seemed to acknowledge this when he gave us a whooping ten seconds of a pro-franquist activist whose comments were not even developed upon. In my opinion, the documentary would have also greatly benefited from providing the viewer with a little more background on the victims which would have made their interviews that much more substantial. Overall, it felt as if the genuinely informative quality of the film had been overshadowed by the director's attempt to turn the whole story into a giant sobfest, violins and all.