The Mountains Remember

About this movie

The Betrayal of Glencoe: When Hospitality Died in the Highlands In the snow-covered Scottish Highlands of February 1692, an act of state-sanctioned violence forever changed the relationship between clan loyalty and governmental power. Historian Christophe Caporilli's gripping documentary explores the Massacre of Glencoe, where government soldiers murdered their MacDonald hosts after accepting their hospitality for two weeks. More than just another bloody chapter in clan warfare, Glencoe marked the moment when modern state power announced itself with musket fire, where ancient codes of Highland hospitality collided with the cold logic of political control. Through haunting imagery of the glen where the tragedy unfolded, Caporilli reveals how the massacre became both a symbol of betrayal and a precursor to moral questions that would later echo at Nuremberg. "When does following orders become complicity? When does authority become tyranny?" These questions, first posed in the blood-stained snow of Glencoe, continue to resonate across centuries. The film explores not only the massacre itself but its aftermath-how it catalyzed Jacobite rebellions and how the defensive phrase "I was only following orders" would echo from the Highlands to the halls of modern justice. As mist rises from the mountains of Glencoe today, Caporilli reveals a story written in stone and snow-a narrative that traverses centuries to speak of power, betrayal, and the price of trust in a changing world.

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