From Amazon.com
Luis Puenzo's shattering 1985 story about the collision of middle-class aspirations and government lies in Argentina packs a wallop a viewer never forgets. A happy couple (Norma Aleandro and Hector Alterio) enamored of their careers (she's a teacher proffering pro-government revisionist history, he's a successful entrepreneur) are made all the more joyous by the fulfilling presence of an adopted baby in their lives. In time, however, Aleandro's character begins to suspect that the child was taken from a woman who is among Argentina's "disappeared," i.e., a likely victim of violent political repression. With that genie out of the bottle, everything about the couple's life together begins to look doctored and glossed-over to her, including the marriage itself. Puenzo (
Old Gringo) leads the mounting suspicion and conflict between husband and wife toward an astonishing eruption of suppressed feelings, a release of buried truths that is more than the story of one wobbly marital union. It is an allegory for a nation fearing its recent past. A powerful experience.
--Tom Keogh
Synopsis
This is an emotionally gripping, fictional look at a couple torn apart by the infamous Argentine campaign of killings and torture that sent thousands of accused terrorists to unmarked graves in the mid-and late-'70s. Alicia (Norma Aleandro) and Roberto (Hector Alterio) adopted a little girl (Analia Castro) during this period of governmental terror in Argentina. Alicia has always wondered about the parents of their little girl, a topic her husband has forced her into forgetting as a condition of the adoption -- he alone knows the full story. Thanks to censorship, Alicia -- like others -- is not fully aware of how much killing has gone on until her students at school start complaining that their textbook histories were written by murderers. Add to this a long conversation with a friend who had been in exile after she was tortured by the government, and Alicia starts to do some serious political and personal research on her own. The results reveal the identity of the little girl's dead parents and reveal that Alicia's husband has had a nasty hand in the government repression and dirty dealings with foreign businesses. She also learns the identity of the girl's grandmother. Her next decision will determine what to do with this information. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
DVD ~ Alejandro Agresti
DVD ~ Mike van Diem
DVD ~ Roberto Benigni
