Die Nacht der tausend Schreie

To Deny our past, sometimes means to be ashamed of it. In Marychase's words, I can find only a feeling like this. As in my home country, Italy, in these years a lot of people try to deny the atrocities of Mussolini's dictatorship, I can see that in Argentina there are people that don't trust the slaughters committed by their military government during the seventies. This movie is poetic, sad, tragic but, I think, is very close to the truth. It's a movie, of course, with a plot, screenplay,...in a movie you can't necessarily see the whole story of a class of students. But what you see in it is something strong, hard and...unbelievable. And that's for some people don't want to believe it. Don't want to accept it. But it was true, sadly... And another shame regarding this movie is that's very hard to find it on DVD!!!

I have always known of the existence of this film, but avoided it through many years due to the heartbreaking intense scenes I knew it contained. This year we are remembering in Argentina the thirtieth anniversary of the terrible dictatorship, so the film was shown at my high school and I could see it for the first time. There are not enough words to express how I felt; imagining I could have been one of the victims if I had lived thirty years ago. I am definitely against this dictatorship, and I admire all the kidnapped and disappeared guys' mothers, who continue struggling to find their sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters. But besides this, I think the interesting side of the film is that despite our political positions (as I'd previously said, mine is against this dictatorship) we can be sure that everything that's happened to these students is TERRIBLE. Terrible because they were standing up for their ideas, they were asking for a decrease in the students' bus ticket price. Whatever our political position is, we cannot deny the fact that everyone has their right to be judged as a human being. The very talented actors let us see, feel and listen how badly, unfairly and terribly those students were taken away from their homes and relatives; tortured to insanity, rapped and killed with no mercy on 1976. I recommend this film to everyone who would like to know what happened. The film only shows one episode of the whole horrible dictatorship. There were about 30.000 disappeared people between those years, not only students but also Jewish people, artists, politicians, journalists... and many more. La Noche De Los Lápices retells one of the -if not the most- horrible and terrible episode during the dictatorship. As an Argentinean I can tell you all that this film touched my heart and made me cry so hard I could hardly watch it through the tears at times. In spite of the pain the film may provoke, it is a "must" for all those people who ever had a dream, an ideal, a wish. Knowing, by listening to my parents, by reading books and by watching this film, the atrocities occurred that night and every night and every day during the dictatorship make my heart jump and my vocal chords shout as loud as I can: "NEVERMORE". Thank you for reading.

This movie is not for the faint hearted, but it's the most realistic one I have ever seen about the brutality of a military dictatorship. But what I like most is the description of the friendship of college students who, despite emprisonmente and tortures, keep their dignity and their desire to struggle jointly for a better world. A movie which should be watched by every apathic teenager - the shock may really make him/her mature his/her views and attitudes.

I must disagree with "Marychase", undoubtedly she speaks for that sector which still denies the atrocities which occurred under the Argentinian regime. Anyone with a minimum criteria and has seen this film, (which is based on TRUE facts, and not supposedly), cannot say that children are terrorists, just because they had an ideal and thought differently and then were prived of their lives. This movie shows how far hatred can go and how a regime can intend to erase beliefs and dreams of a better world. The "terrorist" argument has been used and abused as an argument against a movement which fights a dictatorship. It's like calling "la resistance francaise" terrorists during the nazi occupation. In my opinion this movie also shows the common reality between several southamerican dictatorships.

"La noche de los lapices" is one of the best movies Argentina's made, not only because the story behind the movie was one of the worst part of our history, but also because it was for the director a heroic act to release a movie like this on those times.

I strongly beg you to NOT believe marychase's comment about this movie. If you actually WATCH the movie you'll notice that you'll need no "extra" info about that times.