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The Endless Trench Movie Review

The Endless Trench (La trinchera infinita) is a 2020 Spanish historical drama film directed by Jon Garano, Aitor Arregi and Jose Maria Goenaga and starring Antonio de la Torre and Belen Cuesta. It’s an amazing film.

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“I have lived my whole life for you“

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A man, Higinio Blanco, locks himself in his house during the Spanish Civil War, without knowing how long it will last. Years go by and he is still living in the hole of the wall with no intent to go outside. This is a powerful tale of survival, guilt, paranoia, fear and, yes, even love. The movie works on multiple fronts as it’s not just a strong historical drama, but also an intense thriller and a one of a time romance.

This is undoubtedly going to go down as one of the greatest movies about Spanish Civil War ever produced, it’s that great. The film plunges us into this tumultuous period for the country forcefully and it doesn’t hold back. Everything here is super raw and real. It’s one of those movies that take an entirely different approach to telling a war storyline and that was very refreshing to me. Basically, it’s a one setting film and the filmmakers managed to extract the maximum amount of suspense and storytelling possibilities from this deceivingly simple premise.

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There is this one scene where a man is after our protagonist and he starts breaking in the hole in the wall where he is hiding. The whole sequence plays out with such terror and utter horror that I got goosebumps watching it. The whole movie is told from the point of view of Higinio, thus we understand him, we fear for him and we root for him until the very end.

The ending is also powerful and this is also a love story and one of the greatest in recent memory. He says to his love that he just lives for her alone, which is this time around literally true, so the statement is even more romantic and beautiful. Rosa is such a well written character as she is not just a subservient wife, but a human being with her own needs and desires. Their conflict felt real and their love felt deeply inspirational.

As for Higinio, he was very relatable to me as this is probably how I would behave too in this type of situation. The movie depicts him in such a complex, truly grounded manner and it explores what all of his actions mean, in particular whether he is a coward or not. There is this whole exploration of vulnerability and machismo, especially as it relates to the expectations of men and how they should behave, thus he felt different for this time period and very relatable to modern audiences. Still, the film never shies away from his horrors and it truly showcases that he is a tragic figure and a victim. The final scene is very moving because of all this character development and attention to detail while the final words on the screen remind you that these stories really happened. That was truly hard-hitting.

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The Endless Trench is so well directed by no less than three directors interestingly enough, and the fact that I did not feel that it had three directors goes to show that their work was excellent here. The script is fantastic as the movie explores all of these issues and themes with subtlety while never forgetting to be engaging, and it absolutely is a riveting watch.

It probably did not need to be two and half hours long, but it’s so engaging that I hardly felt its runtime. The whole dictionary intertitles format was a bit overdone, though it was interesting for sure. I would have liked to have seen better executed time transition scenes, but overall the movie is technically arresting in photography, score and acting. Belen Cuesta is incredible as Rosa and Antonio de la Torre is truly amazing in a very complicated, tough role that he played with undeniable confidence.

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