Imagining Argentina

Antonio Banderas plays a theatre director whose wife (Emma Thompson) has been kidnapped by the Secret Service of Argentinian's Videla's dictatorship (1976-1983). Soon he discovers he has sort of a psychic power that allows him to predict the future, and to find out what has happened to her wife and to some of the other missing people (there were +/- 30000 missing people during Videla's dictatorship). Now I wonder: Is it necessary to introduce that paranormal stuff in a movie about Argentinian dictatorship? I mean, you got one of the most cruel and repressive dictatorships ever, and that's enough to make a shocking movie. The psychic powers, the vissions of Banderas' character detract the attention from the main line: the denunciation of that regimen led by General Videla and supported by USA Government, and the atrocities that were committed, the sistematic violation of human rights, and so... Especially when you have two well known stars in the cast, and the movie may have some international impact (which didn't have any of the argentinian movies that talked about the same issue).

Anyway, some parts of the movie perfectly portraits the lack of freedom in Argentina along those 7 years, and there are some sequences really shocking (in particular the ones at the prison where Emma Thompson's character gets imprisoned -and tortured, and raped-). Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson play their roles with so much intensity, especially Mrs. Thompson, one of the best dramatic actresses from the last 20 years (in my opinion).

That's all. I just want to add that this kind of movies are so necessary, people need them not to forget some of the darkest passages of human history. Especially they need them there in the United States Of America, where no one knows a thing about latin-american dictatorships (most of them supported by the White House).

My rate: 7/10

This was truly enjoyable movie in many ways.

The acting was great all around. Powerful emotions were realistically portrayed by seasoned actors, relative newcomers and unknown extras alike. Direction, filmography and locations really come together to set a scene more realistic than most films even aspire to.

This film succeeds in projecting, through the characters, the full range of emotions that any individual must feel when their freedoms are seriously undermined by a corrupt ruling power, the same power that they would normally look to to resolve such issues.

This is not a feel-good movie, and anyone expecting comic relief at any time may be disappointed. This movie sets out to instill feelings in the audience that may help them to relate to the people in the story. It does not abuse concepts such as violence in order to get a kick out of the audience.

Unfortunately, many of those who have posted comments on this movie have failed to grasp part of the point. This is not merely a movie designed to remind the viewer of the past. It intends to remind the viewer that such actions continue to occur worldwide, and that it is only the people themselves who can keep their governments from resorting to such inhumane measures, by reminding their rulers repeatedly that they will not stand for it, in their country or any other.

Frankly, it disturbs me that films this deep go virtually unnoticed by the masses, while flashy but hollow explosion-fests receive awards.

Please excuse my English, now that it is my third language. I was born and raised in Argentina; I currently work in Buenos Aires at a café, until I get my bachelor degree in naval architecture. As crazy as it might sound, my grandfather disappeared in the 1970s, and never came back. Perhaps to you… this was just a movie, you can rate it as you want or give the names you like to. But I found myself dumb founded with this film, I felt the worst anguish while seeing it, and forced myself to keep on watching and to keep on remembering. I can not find words in English nor Spanish to describe how deeply this movie has gotten to me. It's been a long time since it happened, but I see most of this film as my mind portraying old stories that my grandmother used to tell me when I asked about the dad of my dad. A film where reality is described at its best and where a part of me knows that justice in this country is just a word with no meaning, it was before, and it is now. I win nothing by saying this, nor I feel better, I just thought that perhaps I should comment on the impact the movie has had on someone like me, a normal guy who studies and works in country where future has little by little lost its meaning.

Imagining… arrived with a fair degree of controversy, having been booed, heckled and subject to walkouts at 2003's Venice Film Festival. By saddling an infamous chapter in Argentina's history with a supernatural slant – Sixth Sense meets Missing, perhaps – many critics thought this was altogether a bridge too far. But was the reaction justified? It rather depends on whether you prefer your politics served up in an allegorical sauce or red and dripping on the bone. An adaptation of Lawrence Thornton's award-winning novel, the story begins in 1970s Buenos Aires, with dissident journalist Cecilia Rueda (a waveringly-accented Thompson) kidnapped by the fascist junta to join the ranks of the 30,000 'Disappeared'. As her bereft theatre-owner husband Carlos (Banderas) searches in vain, he develops psychic powers, enabling him to witness what happened to his wife and her fellow detainees. Laying his hands on their relatives he glimpses horrifying images of torture, rape and death at the military's hands, galvanising a traumatised public into motioning the government. In Thornton's magic-realist hands, Carlos's clairvoyance was a metaphor for the struggle against state repression, as he 'imagines' scenarios running counter to the official line: 'if you live in a nightmare, you have to re-imagine it.' While playwright-turned-director Christopher Hampton (who also wrote the screenplay for The Quiet American) cannot hope to replicate the novel's tender touch – the voyage from page to screen being a tricky one at best – the intentions are heartfelt, and the film does make salient points about the importance of empathy and memory as powerful and long-reaching political instruments in themselves.

Dear iggimarco, Coming from a country that has a similar past with Argentina i can say that the movie touch me deeply like you. Greece experienced its 7 years of cruel dictatorship 1967-1974. Seven long years that left too many scars.

Every now and then i will hear someone of my family talking about the suffer of those years although they rarely talk about what they've been through.

Indeed those who don't know, who are lucky (or not) enough to come from countries that never experienced that kind of horror will judge the movie based on script, lighting, acting etc. Those who know will feel the movie evoking all those feelings of deep sorrow and pain.

Movies like this should always be made. It is another way to maintain memory of the fallen alive and to make sure that...never again (as the movie tells us in the end)