by NEVIL GIBSON
Historical distortions in movies are hard to justify if they present an inaccurate version of events rather than just use dramatic licence.
One of the worst examples was Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (1995), which won five Oscars and was a box office hit. Set in 13th century Scotland, it depicted the English kings Edward I and II as caricatures while inventing an affair between rebel William Wallace and Edward I’s daughter-in-law, who was only a baby at the time. Moreover, Edward II was shown as an adult when he was in reality barely a teenager.

Historian Sharon Krossa described Braveheart thus: “The events aren’t accurate, the dates aren’t accurate, the characters aren’t accurate, the names aren’t accurate, the clothes aren’t accurate — in short, just about nothing is accurate.”
Hyping up myths of brave Scots and evil English in the 13th century may be understandable in an action show, but such distortions should not be countenanced in treatment of modern history.
There Be Dragons (Samuel Goldwyn) mixes fact and fiction in a story of the Spanish Civil War. One of the two main characters is Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei. The other is Manolo, a fictional boyhood friend of Escriva’s, who is telling his son, a journalist backgrounding Escriva’s pending canonisation, an untold story of Opus Dei’s origins and events during the civil war.
Writer-director Roland Joffé has handled religious and historical themes before (The Killing Fields and The Mission come to mind). Here he is on top form, mixing large-scale action pieces with reflections on the nature of hatred, guilt and forgiveness.
The Spanish war, which ran from 1936-39, was noted for its savagery and, in particular, for the slaughter of hundreds of priests and other religious by anti-clerical forces supporting a radical Republican government.
This led to an uprising by military officers, led by General Franco, who masterminded an eventual military victory at huge human cost to both sides.
John Allen’s book on Opus Dei devotes only a few paragraphs to Fr Escriva during this period, saying he survived in Republican-held Madrid by sheltering in a mental asylum before finally making a reluctant escape across the Pyrenees.
The film fills in a lot of the gaps while following the parallel stories. Manolo provides the most dramatic parts: He spies for Franco’s Nationalists while fighting on the Republican side, where he falls in love with a Hungarian Jewish revolutionary.
But she spurns him in favour of the militia leader. Manolo’s jealousy eventually leads him to acts of betrayal and tragedy that he finally comes to terms with on his deathbed.
Fr Escriva, meanwhile, is in permanent danger for conducting the outlawed Mass. Through this and his other actions we learn of his fledgling movement’s emphasis on Christian forgiveness, which naturally is tested by the actions of hostile enemies.
The melding of a romantic wartime drama with serious religious themes may sound an unlikely mix.
But sympathetic audiences, anxious to understand one of modern history’s worst episodes of anti-Catholic oppression, will be rewarded by a finely balanced account.
Mature audiences; 122 minutes.