Josep

Josep Bartoli (1910-1995) was a Catalan painter and cartoonist. He was a Communist militant and fought in the Spanish Civil War. After Barcelona's fall to Franco's fascists, he crossed the Pyrenees and sought refuge in France, He was incarcerated in various internment camps. He escaped, briefly found employment in Paris and narrowly avoided being deported to the Dachau extermination camp during the German occupation. He was a member of the Resistance.

In 1944 he traveled to Méjico, at the time home to more than 20,000 Spanish Republicans in exile, and published there a collection of drawings made in captivity in the French camps. In 1946 he moved to New York and then to Hollywood, where he worked as a set designer. He was blacklisted under McCarthyism and this perhaps explains a curiosity; although IMDb registers his name there is no list of his movie work, which makes one suspect that his name was substituted or deleted from credits.

This movie is not a documentary. The story begins with Serge, a ex-gendarme in his deathbed confiding his confused remembrances to his grandson. Serge served in the camp and showed humanity towards Josep. Cartoonist Aurel has put the tale on screen not trying to imitate Bartoli's drawings, although several of them play an important role. The animation is limited, and sometimes we have sequences of still frames where the only things that move are smoke or snowflakes. This austere approach fits the tale, which covers Josep's life from his exile to his escape from the Dachau death train, and a little of his Méjico sojourn. I enjoyed every minute of this film and as a bonus got to know the story of a remarkable artist and a man that never compromised his integrity.