El corazón del bosque

A legendary freedom fighter in the remote Alturian highlands of Spain continues his shadowy one-man campaign of survival long after the last gun shot of the Civil War is fired, refusing to surrender despite his failing health and the pleas of an old comrade to end his lonely struggle. The story loosely parallels Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', but suffers from fatally obscure plotting: unexplained events and characters bog down the energy of the film, and every other shot is protracted to the point of unnecessary tedium, presumably to let the symbolism make an indelible impression. It could have been an interesting political allegory, but for anyone not acquainted with Spanish history and temperament the results can be even more elusive than its invisible partisan hero.