Natalie: Yes! I liked it in that it seems to bring to light a
situation that not too many people were/are aware of. I know about los
desaparecidos because one of my many many many Spanish teachers lived in
Argentina for a long time--which didn't help my Spanish pronunciation with
other Spanish teachers but that's another story. But I know most people don't
know about the thousands upon thousands of people who were just disappeared.
And, a lot of this is coming to light now, as the NPR article you posted
pointed out. The disappeared kids in Argentina were around our age so the idea
that you could be in your 30s and not actually know the truth about your life
is kind of a thing.
Tracy: Yeah--that's
why I liked it too. It gave the viewer a lot of information, but kept it
story-centered and compelling. It didn't feel like a documentary, but they did
a good job refracting a huge story through this one woman's coming to
consciousness about what had happened in her own country, through realizing
what happened, and was continuing to happen, in her own house. I also liked the
dynamic between her and her students: "history is written by
assassins." Wow.
Natalie: Yeah, we weren't subjected to a "woe are the
disappeared" story that might be effective in one sense but I think the
idea that people didn't even know what was happening in their own homes--that a
woman could raise a child without knowing the child's parents were murdered,
that a woman could be married to a monster who very effectively covers his
nastiness, that a woman's best friend could have been taken and tortured and
raped without her knowing, that a history teacher knows so little about
history. All of that could have been really overdone, seemed absurd, or at the
very least made Alicia look like a damned fool. But I believed that it could
happen, that part of the country was kept in the pitch black dark while
unknowingly enabling these things to happen. That makes this approach much more
scary than a documentary that might have shown dead bodies and torture.
Tracy: I
agree. It seems one of the weapons was silence. Making her best friend feel
afraid to say what had happened to her, and of course literally silencing the
dissidents. That's what makes the grandmothers' protest so moving and powerful
to me. They're defying the silence and holding up these huge pictures of people
that "should have been" gone. And I've got to say, I was tricked by
Roberto at first as well, and was quite shocked at the swiftness and brutality
of his attempt to "silence" Alicia.
Natalie: One of the most powerful weapons was silence. Anyone who
said anything was silenced and one of the ways of doing that was disappearing
them--and then no one else talked because they didn't want to be disappeared or
worsen then chances of family members who were already missing. And everyone
else just knew not to talk about it. The dinner party at the beginning where
the woman accuses everyone of various disgraces hints at Gaby's parentage but
Alicia doesn't know enough to see that's what the woman is not quite saying. It
was smart to make her a history teacher and they used it well because the
students could be "dissidents" while just seeming like high school
kids. I appreciated the way that trope was used. We weren't beaten over the
head with it. Yes! The transformation of Roberto was slow, sneaky, and
deliberate. I suspected he might have known something but I did not see his
attack coming at all.
Tracy: I
didn't catch that with the woman at dinner! Smart. To go back to something you
said earlier, what do you think Gaby's future is going to be like? I thought it
was pretty chilling, the way the film ended. This was obviously pre the sort of
DNA testing that people can choose to do now, so it just adds to the heartbreak
that you can guess or assume, but not really know too much about where you came
from.
Natalie: And this was right at the end of the dirty war so no one
was supporting these sorts of searches for relatives and the world wasn't aware
of anything yet--and, of course, a lot of the country didn't know what was
happening. I couldn't quite determine if the woman who might have been Gaby's
grandmother wanted to take her away or if she would have let her stay with
Alicia but wanted to be involved in her life (especially since Alicia clearly
didn't know Gaby's origins before). I can't imagine they would have kept Gaby
in the dark but either way would result in serious issues--one way and Gaby
loses the only family she's known for five years, another way and Gaby has to
deal with the fact that her "father" stole her (and who knows whether
he was involved in killing her birth parents) . . . I'm sure it just magnifies
and intensifies anything an adopted child might feel. But, I do agree that the
open ending adds to the heartbreak and the uncertainty. How long until they can
really find out about Gaby? And everyone else? I mean, no one who is going to
say anything actually knows if her birth parents are dead. To make a film with
that many open endings not feel like a complete waste of time is a feat.
Tracy: I
agree--I'm glad, well, "glad" they didn't make her parentage clear.
It really highlights the psychological stakes of this for everyone. And, like
that NPR story mentioned, at least now, if we write beyond the ending, there's
a chance that her dad could go to jail. I was just really struck by how these
murders keep reverberating 30 years later. Though that isn't really germane to
the discussion of this movie. Which I think definitely belongs in the 1001,
yes?
Natalie: Right--we sort of know that the father knew she was stolen
but how much more he knows is wide open. They have a general over for dinner
regularly so he could be pretty involved, especially considering the
dissolution of his company. Well, sort of germane in that it's a reason to
watch the movie. It highlights an issue that is still in the news and causing
heartbreak for people. Yes! Keep it in the 1001!
Revised to add: 1001 includes the film because it was "[m]ade in 1985, just after the collapse of military rule, Luis Puenzo’s film is a brave attempt to face uncomfortable truths. Stylistically conventional, and the ending, in which Alicia’s husband beats her, is fairly melodramatic, but the social anguish in The Official Story is certainly real. It was the film’s political rather than artistic credentials that led the American Academy to award it the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film."
Revised to add: 1001 includes the film because it was "[m]ade in 1985, just after the collapse of military rule, Luis Puenzo’s film is a brave attempt to face uncomfortable truths. Stylistically conventional, and the ending, in which Alicia’s husband beats her, is fairly melodramatic, but the social anguish in The Official Story is certainly real. It was the film’s political rather than artistic credentials that led the American Academy to award it the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film."
Tracy: Yay!
And next: Tootsie. Which doesn't have murder, institutionalized torture, or
anyone getting their hand slammed in a door.
Natalie: Ha! Yay! Sparkly dresses!
Tracy: A cheesy 80s ballad!
me: Hooray :)
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