Review about FRANCO ON TRIAL by Kerstin Stutterheim
Franco on Trial by Dietmar Post & Lucia Palacios Cinematic documentaries give people a voice otherwise not heard, as Peter O’Rourke once said – but there is more. It is the tradition of poetic cinema to allow not just an argument to develop but to invite the audience as citizens, on eye level and as eye witnesses, to form their own opinion about an event, fate, topic. The traditional documentary approach which is cinematic standard primed by Vertov and Ivens, still used by international awarded filmmakers as Guzman or Mettler, enables the audience to familiarise themselves with a situation. As the audience we are allowed to get to know the people involved and their individual stories, as well as the complexity of the interaction of personal destinies and a historical situation or period. This is the quality of that aesthetic tradition which is flexible enough to be adapted for particular stories, such as the one told here. And, this form allows to unfold the particular...
