When a violent conflict has riven a country, should we seek to impose a winners' justice; or should we simply forgive and forget? In South Africa after Apartheid, a compromise was attempted: a "Truth and Reconcilliation Commission" offered amnesty to those accused of crimes, but only in exchange for full and public confession. In Spain, when those associated with Franco's dictatorship stepped back from power, they simply granted themselves full immunity for anything they may have done: the persistence, revealed in this film, of efforts to protect this law suggests they may have not stepped so far from power at all. Indeed, it's disappointing to see how strongly the contemporary centre-right party, which in theory has little to do with its Falangist predecessor, defends the rights of torturers and murderers, whereas the lives of their victims (and their relatives) continue to be consumed by what has happened to them. In general, I'm not a great belieiver in "justice" as an entity that can be delivered, but 'The Silence of Others' makes a strong case that, at the very least, the crimes of the regime should be counted and accounted for.
Review of The Silence of Others
