Now that the bio-pic genre has become as familiar as a worn beach towel, it seems to have spawned a sub-genre — as yet still in the embryonic stages — which can perhaps be described as the "bio-pic of death."
While a straightforward bio-pic dwells on the protagonist's life history, this one lingers over his/her death. Two years ago we saw "Sophie Scholl," in which a young German activist was executed by the Third Reich at the age of 21. This time we have "Salvador (Puig Antich)," about a Spanish activist/anarchist during the Franco regime, who became the last political prisoner in that country to die by garrote. Salvador was 25 years old when he and his comrades robbed a bank, got caught in a police shooting and was injured. One Guardia Civilia officer died and Salvador was named as the culprit who pulled the trigger. In the space of a few weeks he was tried and sentenced to death. His execution was carried out in his cell. All over Europe and even in Argentina, demonstrators launched protests to save Salvador, but Spanish dictator Francisco Franco stood firm in his decision.
Director Manuel Huerga concerns himself less with the events that led Salvador to journey this particular path; rather, he concentrates on the crime scene, the arrest and subsequent weeks of trial. He's also concerned with making things look good, and his long, successful career as a maker of many a stylish TV miniseries surfaces in a series of protracted, bluishly-lit and terribly hip visuals that unfold to raucous 1970s rock. Perhaps this is treatment befitting the last days of an anarchist; but shown here without any historical context it's difficult to determine whether Salvador (played by Daniel Bruhl) is a serious leftist or a bourgeois kid with activist pretensions. It doesn't even feel romantic, but very slick and possibly insincere. In reality the outstanding trait of the death of Salvador Puig Antich was the lack of either ceremony or glamour; he wasn't a hero so much as a sacrificial metaphor for the Franco regime — and by no means the only victim. But Huerga's depictions tell a different tale. Reveling like a child in heists that recall parts of "Dog Day Afternoon" or "Reservoir Dogs," Salvador in the film comes off as reckless, passionate and utterly charming.