A twelve year night is a Netflix original film that was released in the year 2018. The genre of the movie is Biography, Crime, Drama, and History. The film is directed by Alvaro Brechner, and the total runtime of the film is 122 minutes. The movie is based on the 12-year jail sentence to the 3 members of the Tupamaros guerilla group.
The Tupamaros started as a political movement to benefit unionized workers, especially after world war II, when agricultural exports from Uruguay began to decrease. Fewer exports meant lower wages and no social services to workers. This created national tension. To handle this situation, a group of students and few professionals came together as initial members of the Tupamaros. Slowly the movement spread, and trade union members and people from low socio-economic backgrounds joined them.
The Tupamaros collapsed in mid-1972. The Uruguay army killed many of the Tupamaro guerillas and captured many of them. This story is about 3 of that captured guerilla fighters-Jose Mujica, Mauricio Rosencof, and Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro.
This is the first Latin-American movie that I have watched, and I absolutely loved it. The film tells about the condition of political prisoners in a dictatorship regime. It can be assumed by watching this movie, how political prisoners were treated in any country in the past. This movie is about the abuse the 3 political prisoners faced for 12 years! Maybe that’s why the name,’ A twelve year night,’ signifying the long, painful nights the 3 prisoners had for 12 years!
One more thing that was great about this movie was music. It was in perfect sync with the emotions of the prisoners. The 3 prisoners, did absolutely nothing for the whole day, and you can feel the anxiety and even hallucinations they had later in their imprisoned time. The movie indeed describes the meaning of the word,’Prison Horror’.
My favorite part of the movie is when they are shifted to the same jail, they were a few years ago. One of the prisoners is greeted by the jailer, as he had earlier helped him when he was there for the first time. This part, as I could understand, it tells us that the life around them has changed so much, but they were the same as the day when they were first captured- resilient and hopeful.
What I liked about the movie is an excellent conversion of a compelling story. Sometimes, what happens is while making a movie from a true story, it’s essence is lost, but not in this case. The most shocking revelation is in the end when we come to know in the post-credits scene that one of the prisoners, Jose Mujica, later becomes the president of Uruguay. I have rated it 10 out of 10 on every popular movie review platform. It is such a masterpiece, a must watch!
