On 8 November 2024, Marco, the Invented Truth was released theatrically in Spain. Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi, directors of The Endless Trench (2019) and Cristóbal Balenciaga (2024), return with a story based on real events. The film centres on the controversial figure of Enric Marco (1921-2022), a hugely charismatic man who falsely claimed to be a survivor of the Flössenburg Nazi concentration camp. In 2005, Enric Marco achieved internation fame after a report by historian Benito Bermejo uncovered his deceit. Responses to his ‘invented truth’ within the Spanish context ranged from disgust to outrage, as Marco’s case entailed the commodification of memory in a country that did not start to come to terms with its past until the 2000s. It was around the turn of the century when a group of activists initiated a series of grassroot movements to call for the recovery of the memory of the victims of the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship. At the international level, Marco’s invention can be likened to other cases of false testimony, most notably it bears resemblances to Binjamin Wilkomirski’s case, who published a highly acclaimed memoir, Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood (1995). Similarly, his invention has done a disservice of the victims as it lays the ground for Holocaust denial.
The directors have shared in several premiere interviews (including the one that can be read in Gente), that the film project dates back to 2006. After discovering that there were other projects inspired by Marco’s story underway, they put their idea aside. As a matter of fact, there is a 2009 documentary, Ich bin Enric Marco, directed by Lucas Vermal and Santiago Fillol, which received, as stated on the website of the Spanish Film Academy, eight nominations at the 24th edition of the Goya Awards. Click here to see the trailer of the documentary. In addition to the film medium, Marco’s case has also aroused literary interest. In 2015, Javier Cercas, one of most well-known contemporary Spanish novelists, took the life story of this trade unionist who became President of the Amical de Mauthausen y otros campos y de todas las víctimas del nazismo de España to a non-fiction novel, according to the author’s own definition. Entitled The impostor and with the endorsement of Literatura Random House, the novel received the European Book Award 2016, a prize awarded by the European Parliament.
As for the reception of the film that features today’s Blog entry, it had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on 30th August. As part of the film’s advertising campaign, the producer, Atresmedia Cine, had previously launched a teaser trailer, available on You Tube. In Venice, where it participated in the Orizzonti section, it was very well received. Eduard Fernández’s performance in the role of Marco was highly praised, and the film was nominated for Best Film. A month later, it closed, out of competition, the 72nd San Sebastian Festival. The reviews that have appeared following its theatrical release, many of which can be found in Filmaffinity (a Spanish review-aggregation for film and television), are very positive.
References
Checa, Sandra y Bermejo Sánchez, Benito. 2004. “La construcción de una impostura. Un falso testigo de la deportación de republicanos españoles a los campos nazis”. Migraciones & Exilios. Cuadernos de la Asociación para el estudio de los exilios y migraciones ibéricos contemporáneos 5, 63-80.
Related News
Muñoz, F. 2024. “’La estrella azul’, ‘Marco’ y ‘Segundo premio’ competirán por representar a España en los Oscar 2025”. ABC. Disponible en: https://www.abc.es/play/cine/noticias/academia-cine-anuncia-peliculas-competiran-representar-espana-20240904102332-nt.html
Koch, Tommaso. 2024. “Todas las mentiras de Enric Marco, el falso superviviente del horror nazi, reviven en el festival de Venecia”. El País. Disponible en: https://elpais.com/cultura/2024-08-31/todas-las-mentiras-de-enric-marco-el-falso-superviviente-del-horror-nazi-reviven-en-el-festival-de-venecia.html
Zurro, Javier. 2024. “’Marco’, la película con Eduard Fernández sobre el hombre que fingió ser superviviente del holocausto, estrena tráiler en elDiario.es”. Diario.es. Disponible en: https://www.eldiario.es/cultura/cine/marco-pelicula-hombre-fingio-superviviente-holocausto-estrena-trailer-eldiario_1_11717958.html
