Luis Puenzo’s great film The Official Story (La Historia Oficial) deservedly won the !985 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Based on a screenplay by Luis Puenzo and Alda Bortnik and actual, horrific events occurring during the 1970’s in Argentina, this film stands as a political film that is at once intensely searing and dramatically engaging. This is political drama at its very finest.

Historical Background: Following the disastrous Falkland Island War, Argentina’s right-wing military regime, in its death throes, conducted an unthinkably brutal campaign of torture and murder against “subversives” in a desperate effort to retain power. Thousands of citizens merely suspected of opposition to the regime were incarcerated in clandestine prisons and subjected to the most horrific torture practices. Many of those taken into custody disappeared without a trace and became known as “Los Desaparecidos” (or, in English, “the disappeared ones”). Far from being spared, the female captives among those taken were often raped or kicked to death. Babies were taken from their mothers and sold to childless families that supported the corrupt regime. Families of the victims were systematically deprived of any accounting of what had happened to their relatives. By 1983, when this story unfolds, newspapers in Argentina were becoming bold enough to raise questions about this unthinkable tragedy and mothers and grandmothers protested daily at the Plaza de Mayo, demanding a return of their missing children and grandchildren.

The Story: Alicia (Norma Aleandro), the protagonist of this film, is an upper middle class wife and mother as well as a history teacher at a private school for boys. Her husband, Roberto (Hector Alterio) is a well-connected business man in Buenos Aires, with ties to the military dictatorship. The two of them are devoted parents of a lovely daughter, Gaby (Analia Castro), who they adopted five years earlier. Their life is prosperous and, other than their family time together, consists of socializing with a circle of upper crust couples.

At work, Alicia is a strict but effective teacher, demanding discipline of her students. One source of difficulty between Alicia and her students is that the students are a good deal more skeptical about the written versions of history – especially recent history in their own country. As a academician and teacher, Alicia understandably demands documentation from the students for any cynical assertions that they offer. The students reply that history is written by assassins (such as their own government). Gradually, Alicia learns from her students as much as they from her! As a naïve and privileged bourgeois, she has too easily tolerated the activities of the dictatorship and too readily dismissed much of the accusations as falsehoods or hyperbole.

Alicia’s comfortable existence is further shattered when a dear and long-time friend, Ana (Chunchuna Villafane), suddenly shows up after having abruptly disappeared several years earlier – without so much as a goodbye. Alicia naturally inquires as to the reason for her friends disappearance but is shocked by what she learns. After a couple of drinks, Ana reveals that she was seized by police and tortured for over a month because she had once been in a relationship with a man thought to be a subversive by the authorities. Though she had not seen the man in over two years, her interrogators were disbelieving and intent on extracting the “truth” from her. When she was ultimately released alive, it was on condition that she leave the country immediately. She had spent the intervening years in exile in Europe. Ana further described a facility packed full on individuals being simultaneously tortured and that she was sometimes unable to distinguish her own cries of anguish from those of others. One detail of Ana’s revelations burrows into Alicia’s subconscious with particular vigor. Many of the women with whom Ana had been imprisoned had their babies taken away from them and sold to childless families of the military, police, and other supporters of the regime. Alicia is unable to fight the gradual recognition that her beloved daughter Gaby may have been one of those babies.

Gaby had been acquired by Roberto, a wealthy and powerful businessman who worked closely with authorities of the military dictatorship. Roberto had always refused to discuss how Gaby had become available to him or anything about Gaby’s natural mother. Alicia is horrified by the story of the sufferings of the women taken by the regime and feels compelled to seek out the truth about Gaby’s origin. Since Roberto steadfastly refuses to discuss the subject, Alicia draws on her skills as an historian and researcher, undertaking her own investigation. During confession, she confronts the priest who had accompanied Roberto on the day that Gaby had been acquired, but he refuses to discuss the matter and brusquely demands that she stop asking questions and accept God’s will. Alicia visits the hospital where Gaby was delivered, but encounters only locked doors and inaccessible file. Alicia observes the demonstration of mothers and grandmothers at the Plaza and begins to identify with their pain.

At the hospital, Alicia meets Sara (Chela Ruiz), an older woman whose daughter and son-in-law were among Los Desaparecidos. Her daughter had been pregnant as well and Sara believes that her grandchild might still be alive. Sara, believing that Alicia has also lost a loved one, helps her find source books containing pictures of some of the missing. Later, Sara recognizes that Alicia is actually in possession of a child who may be one of the stolen ones and, in fact, could even be Sara’s own granddaughter. In an especially poignant scene in a café, Sara shows Alicia her collection of photographs of her daughter, from childhood, through marriage, and right up to her disappearance.

The film builds to a final confrontation between Alicia and her husband, whose own world is beginning to collapse because the regime that he had supported is disintegrating. The particulars of the dramatic resolution of this story need to be left for viewers to discover on their own. I’ll only add that the ending is a skillful and appropriate balance between resolution and ambiguity. After all, in real life, many of the families affected by the events of this horrible period of history in Argentina were never able to derive satisfactory resolution to either their pain or their questions.

Themes: The obvious theme is the the utter obscenity of political activities that lead to torture, murder, rape, and the stealing and sale of children. Surely, any person of good conscience will find these events horrifying and wonder how such things can occur. The brutal torture of individuals and the tearing apart of families in the name of political stability is human society at its darkest nadir of moral depravity.

Nevertheless, this great film also offers something truly transcendent from which to take heart in the midst of horror. Alicia’s growth process beautifully illustrates the difference between pursuit of self-interest and commitment to truth and justice. In Alicia, we have a true heroine and a great model for genuinely moral behavior. A truly moral person feels compelled to follow the moral course of action wherever it may lead. Alicia is prepared to sacrifice all in the name of truth and justice – her wealth, position, her marriage and (most difficult of all) possibly even her claim of exclusive maternal rights to the daughter that she loves more than life itself. In Alicia’s moral and political awakening, we see the very best that human nature has to offer. Alicia says to her husband at one point, “I just want to know the truth.” Roberto’s problem is that he must hide the truth because the truth bears the imprint of his terrible guilt.

A third theme addressed in this film is the difference between official history and truthful history. The unthinking acceptance of the status quo and the “official” line relentlessly spun out by those in power makes one complicit, to an extent, in whatever wrongdoing they perpetrate. That is as true in the United States of today as in any third world dictatorship of the past or present. The Catholic Church is also stroked by the brush of implicit condemnation in this film. When Alicia seeks the truth from her priest (who accompanied Roberto on the day he acquired Gaby), the priest not only perpetuates the cover-up of whatever crime transpired, but abuses the authority of the religion that he is charged with serving in an attempt to intimidate Alicia into passivity. This symbolically represents the failure of the church to take a moral stand against the brutal actions of the Argentinean dictatorship in the 1970’s.

Production Values: The script and direction for this film is highly effective. Every frame seems well-chosen to advance the storyline so that it unfolds inexorably to its inevitable climax. Norma Aleandro’s tour-de-force performance as Alicia is breathtaking in its depth and subtlety. She understandably won the Best Actress Award at Cannes in 1985 for it. I found her utterly absorbing. The supporting performances by Hector Alterio, Chela Ruiz, Chunchuna Villafane, and little Analia Castro were commendable as well.

The soundtrack is subtle but highly effective. At times, it consists of no more than isolated notes from a piano that help build tension. One of the most indelible scenes occurs in a café where Sara shares the pictures of her missing daughter with Alicia. In the background, we hear the sounds of pinball machines or videogames, though we cannot see the players or machines. The contrast between the heartrending exposition of Sara’s great loss (due to activities of a violent regime) and the sounds of mindless zaps and pings of video games that routinely glamorize violence is incredibly clever and profoundly symbolic. Elsewhere during the film, there is also a well-chosen song (that Gaby sings repeatedly) entitled “En el pais de no me acuerdo” (“In the country of I-don’t remember”), that perfectly fits the subject matter.

Bottom-Line: This film is a very well crafted and wrenching experience that I cannot recommend too highly. It is political statement rendered all the more effective for also being deeply heartrending drama.

The DVD version of this film by Fox Lorber is brutally inadequate according to what I’ve read. Both the audio and video transfers are reportedly awful to an extent that seriously hampers enjoyment of this film. The subtitles on the DVD are the non-optional type, having been burned onto the film itself. Movie-lovers will be well-advised to instead purchase the VHS version or wait for an improved DVD release. The DVD also offers no extras other than some production notes and a list of awards conferred on this great film. My own copy is VHS and is entirely adequate. The Official Story was filmed in Spanish and has a running time of 112 minutes. Despite the intensity of the subject matter, I see no reason why it would not be suitable for age thirteen and older. There is no on-screen torture or sexuality and only one moderately violent scene.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Argentina:

Camila
Man Facing Southeast
Nine Queens
Veronico Cruz

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older