Guernika

A long scene - not even technically one scene, but several in a larger sequence.  From the MODA nominee for Best Foreign Film for 1973, Guernika. Written by Salvador Garrastazu for the Spanish National Cinema production, directed by Floro Ibarra. Today Guernika is widely seen as the superior film from those nominated in its category, but as we all know history is not always kind to the victor and often the film that posterity will recognize is not the one honoured in its day. The winner C'est le Bordel, while provocative in its day actually served up its own demise by pushing boundaries to where the film's once sly humour is now excessively tame, coupled with its stream of consciousness structure - well, bluntly - its a mess.

Meanwhile, the timeless tragic beauty of Guernika, as it follows almost in real time the three hours in April of 1937 in which the market town became the first civilian population to be attacked by air, still stands today as one of cinema's most haunting examples of historical drama.

As many film scholars have pointed out in the past, 'historical drama' may be a poor choice of words to describe Guernika as the film is not in fact based upon the actual attack, so much as the Pablo Picasso painting that was created in response to the atrocity.

The scenes I've selected are those of the first eerie wave of the attack - the bombers aren't even seen (Indeed Ibarra only shows us the enemy gradually, echoing the townsfolk's confusion as they didn't initially comprehend the nature of the attack.) only the impact of their passing is revealed.