Fiesta (1995)

We are in . Rafael de los Cobos, the son of a Spanish nobleman, leaves the French Catholic boarding school in Arcachon, where he has been a pupil for four years, after his father summons him home. His father, a senior officer in Franco’s army, is determined that his son take part in the civil war tearing Spain apart. Rafael is drafted into the Francoist army as a provisional second lieutenant. Before joining the front in the region of Vitoria, in the Spanish Basque Country, Rafael is assigned to a unit whose main task is to deal with prisoners and execute subversive elements. The garrison is commanded by Colonel Masagual, a friend of Rafael’s father, an epicurean aesthete who is homosexual and addicted to morphine. A man of the old order, the colonel lives openly in a homosexual relationship with Casado, his aide-de-camp. He is an ambiguous, melancholy figure with a cynically clear-eyed view of things. To complete Rafael’s military training and toughen him up while humiliating him, Colonel Masagual assigns the young man to one of the three firing squads under his command.