Tuesday the No fiction we discovered a tragedy that most of us spectators were unaware of. Surprised by the size of the case. Thirty workers died in the Berguedà in the most serious accident in Spanish mining in the last 75 years. It was two weeks before Franco died, and lapses in mine safety led to an enforced silence.
Grisú, the tragedy of Fígols recovers the case fifty years later and gives the voice back to the victims. It brings to the surface the pain, the memories and the images that had been kept for the privacy of the families who suffered. The scene involving the widows and children reminiscing about the day of misfortune is moving and cathartic. The staging in a circle, as in a group therapy session, is very appropriate. The distribution of the space puts the victims in the center, they talk to each other and share the affliction, almost like a process alien to the televised event. It’s amazing to still see the affliction behind it even though half a century has passed. “I remember the sadness that was at home”, expresses the daughter of a fatal victim excitedly. It’s not just the father’s absence. It is the heartbreak and sorrow with which he continued to live afterwards. A bad grief. Beyond the tragedy of November 3, 1975, it is the torment that remains forever in the face of injustice and powerlessness. And the documentary reflects this very well. Some of the witnesses are interviewed amidst the ruins of that old Grisú mine. The deterioration of the space, that inhospitable place, contributes to enhancing this emotional context and the passage of time.
It is very good how the documentary, rather than taking credit for the research process, prefers to show how the victims themselves, the children of two miners who died in the tragedy, carry out the research. This “amateur research”, done from the heart, enhances the value of the findings. The moment when they recover the letter that a mine worker wrote to the minister at the time warning him about the lack of security at the facilities is one of the great moments of the documentary. Nevertheless, the script somewhat forces the idea of the mystery about the origin of the accident which is also not so unknown. “Fifty years later we don’t know the causes”, they tell us, but right at the beginning one of the witnesses puts forward the theory that will prove more plausible: the concentration of gray gas during a long weekend that explodes with an electric spark. From the second half of the documentary, the narrative is excessively extended and the story repeats itself.
But the documentary is key to contributing to the country’s memory. It is important that these stories are known. And, in addition, it allows the victims to recover, at least emotionally. The fact that television speaks of their pain and injustice, that there is a public acknowledgment of their misfortune, serves to validate their feelings and grant respect and dignity to the dead. It doesn’t save sadness, but it gives more peace to live with.
Mònica Planas Callol is a journalist and television critic
