BEGINNINGS is a powerful drama played out over countless generations. A cycle of murder and revenge with its origins in the dim distant past returns to haunt a young woman in the mid-20th century as she seeks to escape war and violence and find a new life for herself and her daughter; only to realize there is no escaping the past.
The tale begins with Maria, a heavily pregnant young woman with a baby son in her arms is desperately fleeing persecution at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Attacked by border guards just metres from safety on her escape into France, she and her unborn daughter survive only with the help of an unknown assassin. The trauma sends the unborn baby’s mind deep into her genetic memories of a past where a terrible crime hints at the genesis of a violence that resurfaces time and again over the centuries.
As the young mother tries to rebuild a life for herself and her surviving child, another war, nazi occupation, collaboration and resistance followed by the injustices of liberation and divisive political forces in France and Spain cast a shadow over the decades that follow. These times see Anna, as a child, revisiting, or is it just imagining, dramatic events in the past when her ancestors faced ‘life and death’ choices. With these experiences she develops clearer insights into her true nature as she matures into a formidable young woman.
Meanwhile, Maria struggles with a world where the unfairness of evil’s triumph over good and the arbitrariness of life and death evoke only confusion, uncertainty and an almost loss of faith. "Her head told her that there was no justice but her heart was unconvinced."
Finally she begins to find some peace and the future looks bright for mother and daughter.
"She was relieved that her soul no longer weighed as heavily as it had before, or maybe she had learned how to bear its weight a little more skillfully."
But the scene is set for the coming of a terrible vengeance when ancient and more recent cycles of murder and revenge come full circle, leaving Maria just another victim, and Anna, like her ancestors before her, with little choice as to her life and her future.