The Red Squirrel
The Red Squirrel Spanish La ardilla roja is a 1993 drama film by the Spanish filmmaker Julio Mdem, starring Emma Surez and Nancho Novo.
Though Medem is a Basque, and many of his films have dealt explicitly with Basque regional identity, a Basque theme is not apparent in The Red Squirrel. The main characters are played by nonBasques Surez is from Madrid, Novo from Galicia, Barranco indelibly Andalusian in popular consciousness after her role in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and much of the action is set at the campsite in La Rioja, a liminal region between the Basque country and Castile.Nevertheless, touches of Basqueness are apparent. Major characters names are Basque Elisa Machinbarrena Fuentes and Jota Fernndez Arregui and place names are given in their Euskera forms rather than Spanish Donostia for San Sebastin. Attention is given specifically to questions of identity. When Jota checks in at the campsite, for instance, he signs vasco Basque as his nationality. There are also recurrent echoes of the semimythic past that Basque nationalism has reconstructed for the Basque country video clips of Jotas group Las moscas The Flies are reminiscent of the Basque countrys supposed preIndoEuropean stone age ancestry settings including the forest, lake and zoo evoke mythology or ruralised narratives of Basque history. Finally, if violence in a Basque context has a very specific connotationthat of ETAwhich is represented in Flixs random violence and selfmutilation, then LisaSofas amnesia can be read as an attempt on the part of Basque society to forget and escape from the violence of the past and establish a new identity for the Basque country that is not founded around ETA. ........
Source: Wikipedia
