PATRIA

If the Netflix series of the year was the Queen's Gambit, the HBO series one has been Patria, Patria is the story of how a terrorist gang not only kills, it also fills everything with shit. And leaves shit for generations to come.

Terrorists pressure us to place ourselves at moral crossroads, they force us to bring out the worst out of ourselves, to defend ourselves. Patria is the story of two women. Bittory and Miren. One of them sunk by the murder and the absurd hatred of her countrymen, the other gives her soul to the devil because a mother does it, if her son needs.

There is a tremendous scene in the series, where Miren goes to visit his son Joxe Mari in a prison far from the Basque Country where he is serving a sentence for several murders of his ETA command. In that guarded space and time, separated by a screen, Miren, between tears, places the palm of his hand on the glass that separates them and in those hands a question is read: Was it you? And her son looks at her but does not answer.

History is full of silences with the two best performances of the year and possibly two of the best television and film performances ever made. I live there, I know women like Miren and Bittory. My mother is the same as Bittory, the same attitude. She buys her clothes at the same stores. Bitory and I go to the same hairdresser.

The cemetery shown on the television is next to my house. My deceased relatives are buried there. It is the truest fiction story I have ever seen. It is the first time where cowardice is shown in all its extension. You must watch it if you want to understand the Basque conflict, and if you want to see to what extent a woman is willing to go down to hell for her son. I do not know if it is a feminist series, but if it surely is a real women series. The best HBO has ever done, even considering Wire and Game of Thrones