THE TEACHER WHO PROMISED THE SEA

Good teachers are precious.. We all know when we see one ; they connect with children , understand their fears and troubles and wrap a warm cloak of understanding around their young minds. Antoni Benaiges ,played by Enric Auquer, was one. Antoni reaches the fusty dusty schoolhouse in very rural Castile in 1934 as a recuit.To the children of the village, used to the strict regime of conventional education, he insists on no titles, He is Antoni and he is a tender intelligent friend of each of them. Soon the blows and punishment of past schoolteachers are part of the past as he fills his schoolroom with creative joy. The children begin with the printer Antoni teaches them to use. When the Government inspector sweeps in with the Mayor, the Parish Priest (he still seethes over the removal of a classroom crucifix )and tests the children on their literacy skills, the self-made books shine. All over Europe and Mexico schools participate in this progressive brilliant initiative. Antoni opens their minds beyond the village confines. And as in the title, he promises he will take them to see the sea.

Behind the joys of the classroom creativity, the reactionary forces are in revolt. Bernardo, a sensitive academic is in prison. A cell mate, is concerned about his troubled son Antoni agrees to take in Carlos . The sad defiant child we see in the film is the link between the tragic past and the future.

For the film is framed in two time zones. The granddaughter of a dying veteran of those days is Arianna, an intense introspective young mother,. She is determined to discover her grandfather’s connection with the events of 1934,. She joins the excavation projects which aim to unearth victims of the right wing Falange, to try and connect her own family with the events of 1936 when the Civil War began..But ii is her own dogged efforts of research that reveal the tragic truth behind the mystery.

This is a beautiful film packed with insight and enlightenment. On two levels this is a fascinating production

The Spanish Civil War, explained the historian Professor Sir Paul Preston who reviewed the conflict in a Q and A, with the inspiration behind Camera Catalonia Ramon Lamarca, was ‘something that happened to people’ in that time, not the War of usual concept. ‘People fought for the rights to literacy and freedom from poverty that the Republic had brought them” Not often an after film discussion is quite so illuminating, but then Sir Paul is one of the foremost experts on the Spanish Civil War.

This film with its emotional depth and delight in education says it all. Films can change your perspective on an individual, on a family on a culture – but how about on an entire country?

Showing on Tuesdaay 29th at 15.55

Antoni Beanies (Enric Auquer) with some of his pupils outside the school