Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

grantss Spanish Civil War, 1930s. Richard Jordan, an American, has joined up with the Republican side. He is given the tough assignment of blowing up a vitally important bridge. Things get complicated when he falls in love... Based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway.OK-ish, but not great. Plot drifts, and the movie is overly long. Some decent editing and this could have been an hour shorter and much more coherent.Despite starring greats Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman (whose previous film was Casablanca), the performances are unconvincing. Cooper and Bergman don't seem to gel well. The supporting cast are woeful.I haven't read the book, but I am sure it is better than the movie.

Cheese Hoven This film has a reputation for being somewhat boring, even turgid. For the first hour, I can certainly see the point of that. Not a great deal happens in the first 60 minutes or so, other than a rather predictable and over ripe Hollywood romance springing up between Cooper and Bergman. There's no action, no real sense of an external threat (surprising considering the setting) only a few not too interesting squabbles between the partisans.This however changes pretty much when the weather changes. As the snow begins to fall there is a new urgency to the film. Nationalist troops show up and the squabbles take on a darker edge with a real sense of menace. There is a truly superb performance from the drunkard which deserved an Oscar. Then Pilar (well played too) recounts his past history and we see him in a more sympathetic light. From then on our feelings towards the drunkard constantly shift between disgust and pity, perhaps the subtlest aspect of the film.One can say the dialogue is rather over-blown but this is typical of romantic films of the time. But the scenes of the atrocities committed in the name of 'freedom' are well done and surprisingly brutal even for a film of 1943.

cmeneken-1 To suggest, as a number of reviews have, that Cooper's acting is wooden is being polite. His words emanate like some parody of a person learning English for the first time, stoned, and in a casket. Granted, some of the lines he is given are terrible ("If I go, you go with me," and about 10 variations of this), but he is supposed to be an actor. At least, the others give some flair to their performance, but Coop was clueless. This is what happens when you get a Republican to play a Hemingway hero in the Spanish Civil War: a truly treasonous performance. As much as I like him in some pictures, such as High Noon, his acting or whatever you call it in FWTBT is deader than Monty Python's Norwegian Blue.

Emil Bakkum For some reason I have developed a liking for Ernest Hemingway, the writer of For whom the bells tolls. His characters have the bravery and lack of fear (or is it manliness?), which I also enjoyed with for instance John Wayne. With regard to the intellectual content, I am less certain about the excellence of Hemingways narratives. Nevertheless, For whom the bell tolls is a true epic. And the Spanisch Civil War is an outstanding stage for the unfolding of a story. Here the people had chosen a government that originated from their own ranks. And when the conservative military tried to seize power, the people put up a resistance that was both heroic and long lasting. The fascist military got support from its allies in Italy and Germany, whereas the Republic was reinforced with International Brigades of all kinds (but with a dominance of Bolshevists). In the film we see an American professor, Roberto, who works as a saboteur for the Republican Peoples Army Headquarters. He is ordered to blow up a bridge in the Spanish mountains, as part of a republican offensive. Unlike many foreign fighters, during his quest Roberto is embedded in a group of Spanish partisans. The film is easily accessible, and is never boring, alth0ugh it contains no surprises. There are little political moments, and actually the film has been dubbed as one of the greatest romances. For Roberto yields to the intimate advances of a young girl named Maria. During the war her republican parents were killed and she herself was raped by the nationalists. It is evident that she is in great emotional anguish, which combines with an adolescent instability. What does Hemingway intend to express? The dialogs seem superficial and devoid of clues. So I guess Hemingway uses the whole entourage as a parable, just to reflect on the war itself. For although the Spanish Civil War has gained an image of social progress and human liberation, contemporary sources suggest that the society was still primitive and in the feudal stage. It may well be that the Spanish situation resembled the turmoil in Russia around 1917, that has been portrayed so skillfully in Doctor Zhivago. In fact the leader Pablo of the partisan group was responsible for the massacre of the nationalists in his own village. During the expedition Pablo murders a few partisans from another group, who had joined him in an attack on enemy positions. "I only care for my people", Pablo explains. It may well have been the experience of Hemingway himself, that the heraldic partisans were in fact simple farmers, who wanted to get rid of the land owners, and disliked anything outside of their field of vision. What appeared as anarchism was perhaps backwardness. Such a state of mind might explain the primitive cruelty of the war, as is portrayed in the film. Then the romance with Maria might represent Hemingways passion for the poor people of Spain. In the last scene, when Roberto prepares for the final battle, he ponders over his devotion. Is it towards America? Spain or the Republic? No, it is towards the desolate Maria. Anyway, I find the film recommendable. However, I definitely prefer the little-known film "Fuenf Patronenhuelsen", also about the Spanish Civil War, and even about a similar mission. You might also consider the Ivens documentary "The Spanish Earth", also with Hemingway. The Loach film "Land and Freedom" is also worth seeing. If you like social films in general, then have a look at my other reviews.