Posted: 03/28/2009

Clandestinos (2009)

(2009)

by Sawyer J. Lahr

Clandestinos sets a political conflict in modern day Spain and tells it through queer eye. An impressionable former male hustler, Xabi, from the Northern Basque region, finds a new calling in terrorizing the Spanish government for Basque sovereignty. His brainwashed actions are set off by a getaway in the mountains with a elder male lover, Inaki, who turns out to be a leading member of the ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom), a terrorist organization fighting for Basque independence.

Xabi is infatuated by his former lover who he met approximately a year or so before being sent to prison for burning a policeman to death. Inaki picked up Xabi on a roadside, starting a short romance overshadowed by Inaki’s violent radicalism and closeted homosexuality.

Taking it upon himself to make a political statement for the Basque country. Xabi, a brainwashed, misdirected, young man falls prey to another older retired policeman, German, who likes to be escorted by barely legal young men. Xabi robs him and takes off with his gun and the 80 euros for sex, intending to find Inaki and carry out a terrorist act.

Xabi sets out to stir up conflict, but his attempts at terrorist bombings are amateur. The cause to release the Basque region from the Spanish constitution of 1978 is justified by history, but the violent means of counteraction is unjust in the opinion of this film.

A clueless Moroccan fugitive is brotherly drawn into the conflict by Xabi without either ever acknowledging the consequences. They too easily dash the authorities to bomb the national flag in Columbus Square in Madrid. The experienced ETA terrorists, Inaki and his collaborator are stopped by police heading into Madrid to make their own attack. Inaki and his partner escape the police and watch the television angrily as Inaki realizes it was Xabi who went rogue to please him, but Inaki is accidentally blamed for the attack by authorities.

The pace of the film leaves a feeling that the consequences are not as imminent even once the police interrogate Xabi’s fellow juveniles who escaped with him from incarceration. Xabi seems an unlikely terrorist, but, in reality, Spanish youth help further the cause and actions of the ETA.

Socially orphaned, Xabi tries to become Inaki, whom he idolizes as a father figure with deep, but naive affections. Xabi wants to make a statement, but not hurt anyone. He only begins to understand that Inaki and the ETA are not justified in killing, kidnapping, and injuring Spanish people to drive home their point.

German takes a special interest in the case of the escaped youths. He favors Xabi and sees his innocence under his superficial exterior. As Xabi’s life is threatened, German risks his own life to save him and win his affection.

Sawyer J. Lahr is Chief Editor of the forthcoming online publication, Go Over the Rainbow. He also writes a monthly film column for Mindful Metropolis, a conscious living magazine in Chicago, IL.

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