war remains a commanding, emotionally charged subject for Spanish writers, artists, and filmmakers.

Here Cuerda has drawn upon three Rivas short stories -- each of which looks at crucial 1936 in a slightly different light. Artfully woven together by screenwriter Rafael Azcona, "La Lengua de las Mariposas" ("The Language of Butterflies"), "Carmina," and "Un Saxo en la Niebla" ("A Sax in the Fog") give us an unsettling picture of a society reveling in its fragile new democracy but increasingly divided by ideology, threatened by incipient violence, and disturbed by religious and sexual repression. On screen the dominant story is the first one, in which an asthmatic six-year-old, Moncho (Manuel Lozano), is sent to school where, after a jittery first day, he blossoms under the tutelage of a kindly oldteacher named Don Gregorio. Significantly, the old man, who is played by the great Spanish actor and director Fernando Fernán Gómez, is rumored to be both an atheist and a socialist. But his way with children is magical: He awakens in them an appreciation of poetry, a love of nature, and a respect for personal freedom. For little Moncho, a curious boy who already knows how to read, the classroom is heaven. We see his eager mind opening, drinking in the wonders of the world. If Don Gregorio personifies the spirit of Spanish liberty, his newest student surely represents the promise that his spirit will continue to flourish.

You may feel like calling out the symbolism police when Don Gregorio begins explaining to Moncho the biological relationship between a