La historia oficial

A searing political exposé situated in the immediate aftermath of Argentina's Dirty War (1976- 1983), director Luis Puenzo's second feature THE OFFICIAL STORY became the first Argentinian movie to snatch Oscar's BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE PICTURE laurels.

In 1983, the seemingly perfect life of a middle-class high-school history teacher Alicia Ibáñez (Aleandro) starts to crack when she begins to suspect the birth parents of her adopted daughter Gaby (Castro, an elfin darling), now 5-year-old, might be victims of political persecutions during the military dictatorship. She is determined to find out the truth and inexorably clashes with her husband Roberto (Alterio), who is a well-off government representative and might be in the knowing from the very start.

Puenzo and his co-screenwriter Aída Bortnik import a limpid script to set Alicia to embark on a late-but-better-than-never realization of her country's buried horror which implausibly has been eluded by her until that point, as one of her colleagues Benítez (Contreras) jests that nothing is more gratifying than a guilty bourgeois woman.

What makes Alicia tick is the return of her best friend Ana (Villafañe) from abroad, during an escalatingly poignant two-hander from the two magnificent actresses, Ana confesses to her that she was subjected to torture by the secret police (she is an associate of a subversive) and was forced into exile. Ana's account jolts Alicia into facing up with that troubling question, at the same time, a subplot pertains to the rebellious polemic of Alicia's students (atrociously played by actors much maturer than high schoolers) also vouch for the progress on her conscience. When she finally meets Sara (Ruíz), possibly Gaby's biological grandmother, she bestirs herself with a final attempt to reason with her intransigent husband.

Apart from the film's polemical angle in cashing in on a topical powder keg, in retrospect, the film's more lingering sway is underlain by its less argumentative depiction of women's place in a typical patriarchal society, through our heroine, Alicia is an ordinary woman in every aspect, mostly hedged in her domestic remit, a mother and a wife, Roberto has never cared to ask anything about her job, as if it is just a hobbyhorse to keep her busy. During Roberto's apoplectic wrangle with his leftist father Jose (Battaglia) and brother Enrique (Arana), Alicia's total silence speaks volumes in that tableau vivant - women have no voice in politics (neither in religion, as glanced through Alicia's vain endeavor inside a confessional, belittled by a snotty man of God), they are subservient, ancillary and biddable, but, as a human being, every sane soul is endowed with the judgment of right and wrong, and Puenzo's sensible work pays the highest homage to that, which makes the ending incredibly uplifting albeit with such a small gesture, as it would happen in real life.

Puenzo assembles an ace cast, Villafañe, Battaglia, Ruíz are all bankable scene-stealers, but no one can upstage Norma Aleandro's pyrotechnics, which oozes heartfelt nuance to countervail a melodramatic milieu Alicia is entangled with and staunchly refuses any trace of ham. On the other hand, Héctor Alterio embodies Roberto, a mouthpiece of the junta, with repulsion-inducing exertion as the sole villain in the film, an outstanding feat to accomplish out of a less well-rounded character.

All in all, Puenzo's blunt cri-de-coeur is graced with a lyrical accompanying score and an encroaching camera-work as if it tries to delve as deep as possible into its characters' psyche, an engaging infotainment with humanity unflaggingly glistening in its nucleus.

La Historia Oficial is an excellent movie. It is also the testimony of the suffering of the Argentinian people during the military dictatorship. But those who are not from Argentina, like myself, can very well be touched by this movie. I was observing the cruelty of the government and thought "my God, totalitarism is always the same, and no matter if the violation of human rights occurs in Argentina under the military regime, in Cuba under the Castro dictatorship, in Chile under Pinochet, in Europe during Hitler, people suffer the same and the least we can do is to feel compassion". A good lesson from this movie, generation after generation we shouldn't forget the victims. They deserve justice.

This Piece was powerful and thought provoking. It was also perhaps the most depressing film I have ever seen in my life. The tragic story leaves the viewer with a somewhat empty feeling, which is appropriate. The sad fact is that thousands of families in Argentina fell the emptiness that this film induces every single day of their lives. Hector Alterio spectacularly portrays the jaded and evil Roberto, who works with the corrupt ruling military junta. One truly grasps a sense of the insecurities and weakness behind such bullies.

This movie is a wakeup call for anyone who believes that apathy is okay. The truth is that the tragedies in Argentina in the 1970's were partly allowed to occur because of the ignorance and apathy of both people within Argentina and in the outside world. Hopefully, by watching this film, people will resolve to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again.

La Hitoria Oficial is a spectacular film to learn about a subject which receives little or no attention in the US. However, be warned: it is one of the most tragic films you may ever see in your life. You will leave the film both saddened and angered that nothing was done to prevent these horrible crimes.

Adoption can be a harrowing business at the best of times, and the final scene of 'La Historia Oficial' probably represents The End of the Beginning rather than The Beginning of the End. The real drama almost certainly still lies ahead when sweet little moppet Ana discovers the reality about her parents; as teenaged Ann Blyth traumatically did thirty-five years earlier in the Goldwyn production 'Our Very Own' (1950).

I cry each time I watch this film. (The scene with Norma Aleandro and the baby clothes) Always gets me. An American film-maker would have made a film about one of the "desaparecidos" (disappeared ones) - but Puenzo is too sharp for that - by making a film about one of the quietly complicit, he has indicted all of us who are aware that things aren't quite right in the world, but choose to ignore the fact...and do nothing. Devastating, political and yet personal. My all-time favorite film.