Boda secreta

It's one of the best films I have ever seen. The story, the acting, the blue colors in the film... it was gripping. The end was one of the most heartbreaking scene's I have ever seen. I cried a river. Very beautiful and emotional... The story is about Fermin, a man that worked as a bus driver and was a member of a workers-union in Argentina. Supposedly he's been arrested for that fact during the Military Junta and was a Missing Person for several years. And then, one day he appears naked on the streets of Buenos Aires again. Fermin suffers from amnesia. He doesn't know what has happen to him for all those missing years. But he remembers his life before his disappearance. Fermin decides to go to see the woman he was supposed to marry, before he got arrested, but she does not recognize him. The story is not about his "missing years " but about what happens when people re-appear when everybody thinks they're dead.

From the beginning, Boda Secreta is not a conventional film. The basic setup of a man with a lost memory arriving in town, and the woman waiting for her lover who promised to return seems straightforward, but this film refuses to play to expectations. Instead the focus remains on the interactions between the characters which build in a satisfying and unhurried way. Throughout the film, the relaxed, understated humour gently amuses with only the odd moment where the satire feels a little heavy-handed. Agresti uses a variety of slightly disorienting techniques, perhaps to reflect the inner confusion of the protagonist. High angles, mobile camera and wide lenses are effectively used, without being overbearing. Overall, a few notes of the plot struck me as being a bit odd, especially towards the end of the film, but in conclusion, this is a satisfying and enjoyable movie.

A man emerges naked from the Buenos Aires subway tunnels in 1989. He suffers from amnesia, but the police and intelligence 'help' him (through rough questioning) to put together his name, and that he was 'disappeared' by the military junta in 1976 for being a union organizer. He has been assumed dead these past 13 years.

Fermin, as he now realizes his name is, goes to a small town to find the woman who was the love of his life, and to whom he was engaged to marry before he disappeared. Over the years she has gone slightly mad, living for Fermin's return, but not able to see that it's him when he returns to her small, quirky somewhat surreal and insular home town, where all outsiders are regarded with suspicion.

The bulk of the film is Fermin's slow attempt to re-awaken his lost love, and to find a home in a town where the small ruling class is particularly suspicious of outsiders.

There are one or two key plot twists that feel slightly out of left field, but not enough to damage the emotional impact of this emotional, beautifully acted and photographed film.