Some Spanish drama of the early twentieth century tended to present stories based on the heartland. That is the case with most of the work of Federico Garcia Lorca, perhaps the best playwright and poet of modern Spain. The rural settings involved situations in which the love for the land was a strong feeling that caused most confrontations, eliciting revenge, as the passions were out for everyone to see.

Carlos Saura, a noted director, tried his hand with the screenplay Ray Loriga created based on a real incident in the 1990s in the country side. It involved the feud between two clans that only brought tragedy to their own impoverished lives. Mr. Saura, who started his film career working under the Franco dictatorship, always got away with the contents of the tales he presented by making parables that had strong messages that audiences interpreted as they saw the hiding meanings.

Johana Cobo, who was seen as Penelope Cruz's daughter in Almodovar's "Volver" plays Isabel, and through her eyes we get to know about the story. Victoria Abril who always plays more sophisticated roles appears as Luciana the wronged girl who is left with her wedding gown as a souvenir of the love she felt for the boy from the opposite clan. Jose Diaz and Eulalia Ramon bring dignity to their take of the Fuentes. Juan Diego makes an intense Antonio.

Francois Lartigue captures the essence of the life in that part of Spain during the summer. We also enjoyed Roque Banos musical score. Carlos Saura, whose last films concentrated mainly on dance, returns in excellent form for this gripping account of a real shocking tragedy.

Thirty years of hatred among two families facing each other and terminating into a burst of violence . It took place one bloody Sunday . "The 7th Day" is based on real events but the roles are fictitious as there happened ¨The Puerto Hurraco massacre¨, it was a mass murder that occurred in Puerto Hurraco, a village in Benquerencia de la Serena municipality in the Province of Badajoz, Spain on August 26, 1990, when brothers Antonio and Emilio Izquierdo fired at people in the streets with two shotguns, killing nine and wounding at least six others. The perpetrators used two 12-gauge shotguns to cause the slaughter . The two then fled, but were arrested a couple of hours later and eventually sentenced each to 684 years in prison.

This interesting film deals with a tragedy of human emotions pushed over the edge . This hard picture is well set in Spain of the late 8os , as some unfortunate events and disputes lead toward more frequent and angrier facing off , when two men set out a planned vendetta that terminates a final slaughter . Its style is pretty much sour , dry and realistic as well in the atmosphere as in the fresh dialog . ¨El Septimo Dia¨ or "The Seventh Day" shows the miseries of some amoral characters and their bloody vengeance . This film describes the rural life , including dances , character studio of local people and an enjoyable love story among a young couple . The film holds some similarity to Saura's former films such as ¨The chase¨ or ¨La caza¨ and ¨Dispara¨ or ¨Outrage , in which revenger people pick up their rifles and execute a criminal spree . Well played by known and prestigious actors such as Juan Diego , Victoria Abril , Jose Luis Gomez and Jose Garcia . And a fine plethora of notorious secondaries such as Ana Wagener , Carlos Kaniowsky , Elia Galera , Carlos Hipolito , Mariano Peña , Marivi Bilbao , brief acting by Antonio De la Torre as Cabo Guardia Civil and Eulalia Ramon , Carlos Saura's wife . And introducing three little girls such as Yohana Cobo as Isabel , Irene Escolar as Antonia and Alejandra Lozano as Encarnación . Good production design by Rafael Palmero and correctly reflecting the atmosphere by that time . Splendid photography with juicy atmosphere by Francois Lartigue . Being appropriately filmed on location , showing one colorful filming from Otero de Herreros, Segovia, Castilla y León, Spain . Atmospheric musical score by Roque Baños who composes a soundtrack plenty of Andalucian and Flamenco songs . Baños is a successful composer such as ¨Fragiles¨ , ¨The Machinist¨ , ¨Sexy beast¨ , ¨800 bullets¨ and composing Hollywood pictures such as ¨Old Boy¨ .

The motion picture perfectly produced by magnificent producer Andres Vicente Gomez was rightly directed by Carlos Saura , a good Spanish movies director . He began working in cinema in 1959 when he filmed ¨Los Golfos ¨(1962) dealing with juvenile delinquency from a sociological point of view . And of course ¨La Caza¨ or ¨The Chase¨ (1966) his most successful film , this picture deservedly won Silver Bear in the Berlin Festival . Saura is a well recognized filmmaker both nationally and internationally, and in proof of it he won many prizes among which there are the following ones : Silver Bear in Festival of Berlin for Peppermint Frappé (1967),Special Jury Awards in Cannes for La Prima Angélica (1974),and for Cría Cuervos in 1975. All of them shot at the height of his creativity, in a period cultural difficult, where the enormous censorship of the political regime exacerbated the ingenuity and imagination of the scriptwriters . Also, the film Mamá Cumple Cien Años (1979) got an Oscar nomination in 1979 as the best foreign film , and it also won the Special Jury Award at the San Sebastian Festival . He subsequently made ¨Deprisa , Deprisa¨ based on facts about juvenile delinquency in Spain since the 80s , as he tried to take a position in favour of outcast people and he got to make a both lyric and documentary-style cinema . In 1990, he won two Goyas , the Spanish Oscar , as best adapted screenplay writer and best director . Saura became an expert on Iberian musical adaptations as ¨Carmen¨ , ¨Amor Brujo¨ , ¨Bodas De Sangre¨ , ¨Sevillanas¨ ,¨Iberia¨ , ¨Salome¨, ¨Fado¨, ¨Flamenco¨ and even recently Opera as ¨Io , Don Giovanni¨

Carlos Saura has been one of our finest directors for almost five decades, and, after a bunch of irregular films in the nineties, returns in top form with "El séptimo día". Based on the tragic true events happening in 1992 in Spain, the film captures the essence of the maddening atmosphere that gave way to the slaughter of Puerto Hurraco.

In Spain there is little tradition of portraying real-life events in film. Writers Loriga and Saura were actually heavily criticized by some, as if their film would bring back the painful memories that most people had chosen to forget. However, their film portrays the slaughter and the events that led to it with gusto and with no sign of sensationalism.

In fact, a great part of the film is devoted to depict the summer romance of a young girl (Yohana Cobo, what a discovery) and a lifeguard (Oriol Vila, another breakthrough). Thus, the murderers (outstanding Juan Diego, José Luis Gómez, Victoria Abril and Ana Wagener) are relegated to a secondary subplot for almost half of the film.

Saura managed to assemble one of the greatest casts of the last few years. Apart from the aforementioned, José García, Eulalia Ramón, Carlos Hipólito and, in bit parts, Elia Galera, Juan Sanz and Carlos Kaniowski are worth mentioning for their excellent work in "El séptimo día".

The best: the cast and the good taste in filming a real-life tragedy. The worst: that some people criticized it before they had even seen it. They should not forget that we are bound to repeat our history if we choose to forget it.