ABSTRACT
Euskal Herria, Pais Vasco and the Basque Country are three nations in one. Euskal Herria – the land of the Euskera speakers – is a mythic place, hidden deep inside the impenetrable and ancient language from which it takes its name: a world of warriors, whalers and woodsmen. Pais Vasco is the Spanish equivalent and seems much smaller, a primitive rural area of northern Spain: a land of cow-farmers, great sportsmen and vociferous, violent nationalists. And the Basque Country is the new, autonomous, industrialised nation as seen from abroad. Any analysis of Basque cinema must therefore deal with this three-way split personality in relation to language, politics and a history of almost total censure during the dictatorship; for it is also the linguistic, aesthetic and thematic obsession of Basque film-makers. The director Imanol Uribe, for instance, has exposed the tensions that exist between myths and propaganda by developing the form of the documentary as both a political and a narrative device, often deliberately confusing the two. Even fictional Basque films, whose narratives commonly explore the prevailing themes of rural introspection and urban degradation, have mostly concealed a multiplicity of political intent. More recently the vast investment in film-making by the new Basque government, keen to promote its singular voice in both national and international markets, has produced film-makers whose treatment of these themes reveals a fresh, often subversive approach to questions of Basque identity.
