Thursday, July 28, 2005

Basque Ball

Julio Medem's approach here is interesting even if you have little interest in the low-level conflict that has repeatedly flared out of the nationalist discourse of Europe's (ab-)originals.

The Basque director bears witness to this strife using a crowd of informed witnesses. "Like a big tongue perpetually touching a sore tooth" is how one of these tries to capture the essence of this atavistic identity crisis - one of the few stabs at succinct summary Medem has compiled - for other than an appeal for dialogue, he appears happy to leave most of the painful contradictions bouncing around the court.

While many historical commentators aim for synthesis, stepping back from the views on the ground, adopting the posture of scientific objectivity, Medem seems to be revelling in a thoroughly embroiled, multivalent stance - what in modern critical theory is sometimes referred to as an immanent critique.

I'm not sure how many individuals participated, perhaps more than 70. The editing creates poignant contrasts, such as when the wife of a man murdered by the terrorists speaks in excerpts spliced with the views of the wife of an etarrista encarcerated far from his homeland. Sometimes Medem seems to be weaving a kind of artificial composite when his subjects' words are cut and collated to sound like an exchange between empassioned debaters in the same room.

Most of all though, Pelota Vasca reminded me that all history starts like this, and that all erudite synthesis is inevitably a lossy process.

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