Im doing an essay for uni and my question reads : To what extent has Spanish society come to terms with the legacy of the Civil War and the dictatorship? Examine public discourses and debates, OR analyse a film or a work of fiction, OR reflect on the country's different ways of accommodating private and public memories, OR compare with other memories of authoritarianism. I have chosen to review a film as it might be good in terms of having a lot of information to work off. Which would you suggest would be a good one to help me answer this question? or which film have you seen which really relates to this question? any help would be great, thanks!
The most well known modern film that deals with the Spanish Civil War, at least to mi knowledge, is "La Lengua de Las Mariposas", or "Butterfly's Tongue" in English. It was filmed in 1999 and is an adaptation of a short story by writer Manuel Rivas. It deals with the life of a left-leaning/anarchist teacher in Galicia and the relation he develops with a child just before the start of the war, ending as the war breaks out.
There is a good article about it in El Pais written in '03, but it is in Spanish as you can imagine.
The Spanish Civil War has become the backdrop of two prominent genre movies. Although he is a Mexican director, both Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone and his Pan's Labyrinth take place in the closing stages or immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Although the fantastical elements in both films are present, they meld with rather than overshadow the historical context. For example, one of the most prominent set pieces in The Devil's Backbone is an unexploded German bomb in middle of the orphanage's plaza. This not only sets the stage for the ghosts, but also is a not so subtle metaphor for the unexploded past. Del Toro is an atheistic humanist and both movies are in part him trying to reconcile the fact that in Spanish Civil War, humanism lost. When either film focuses on the Republican forces, they are sympathetic and emblematic of a deeper humanity. The Falangist characters tend to be individuals who haphazardly and gleefully employ violence. This context helps underscore the horror elements because it openly acknowledges that there will not be a happy ending since the war itself did not.
Land and Freedom, directed by Ken Loach is great, and gives an overview of the war. There is one scene, you can read about it on wiki, that is acted by local spaniards and shows some of the contested ideas during that time.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_Freedom
Land and Freedom is also very similar to George Orwell's non-fiction Homage to Catalonia.
Of course, these non-spanish movies probably romanticise the depiction a bit.
Edit: I am super interested in this topic, and if, when your essay is done, you wanted to share it I would love to read it!
Ay Carmela! is an excellent film set during the Spanish Civil war, and if not exactly a documentary, does have plenty of symbolism in it that you could toss around in a paper. There's a mute who only regains his voice at the end when a woman dressed as the Republic is shot by a fascist, there's an apolitical farting vaudeville actor who makes a living off of entertaining republican troops, and a weird, rather fey Italian fascist officer who's a big fan of musical theatre.