Plot
The movie opens with shots from the Spanish Civil War, and a line of Spanish refugees crossing the border into France after defeat by the Francoists, Manuel Artiguez turns away from the border and back towards Spain. But his friends stop him, saying "Manuel, the war is over!". The story returns twenty years later, to a young boy named Paco, who asks a man named Pedro why Artiguez has stopped his guerrilla raids against the Francoists in Spain. Pedro sends Paco into France to find his uncle and Artiguez. When Paco finds Artiguez, he tells him he wants him to kill Viñolas, a Guardia Civil officer, for killing his father. Paco lets Artiguez know that his father was killed because he wouldn't tell the police where to find Artiguez. Meanwhile, Viñolas has learned that Artiguez's mother is dying, and sets a trap at the hospital in San Martín to capture Artiguez, presuming that he will come to see his mother. In return for information about the layout of the hospital and surrounding area, Paco tells Artiguez to "bump into Viñolas" for him.
After Viñolas has laid his trap, Artiguez's mother dies (after asking a priest to warn her son not to come), but Viñolas sends a spy to convince Artiguez otherwise, and to come visit her. When the priest appears at Artiguez's house, he's gone, so the priest tells Paco to pass on the message that his mother is dead, and not to go to San Martín. But, for selfish reasons, Paco rips up the letter and doesn't pass on the message. Afterwards, Paco recognizes the man (Carlos) in Artiguez's house as an informer, and tells Artiguez about the priest's message. Trying to clear up the mess, Artiguez takes Paco and Carlos to Lourdes to find the priest, but he's not there, and they let Carlos go. On the way back, however, they see the priest, and take him to Artiguez's house. When Carlos returns for his rucksack, he senses the trap, and escapes. After much internal debate, Artiguez then decides to go to San Martín anyway, presumably with the mission of killing Viñolas. Once in San Martín, Artiguez encounters a Francoist sniper on the roof of the hospital and attacks him, sending him to his death. Once inside the hospital, he kills a few officers, but is finally shot.
Read more about this topic: Behold A Pale Horse (film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)