Imagining Argentina (2003)

Thanks for the memories!

Admirable film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Imagining Argentina (2003)The story, and the facts behind the story, of innocent people being kidnapped, tortured, and killed in Argentina is so disturbing and emotionally draining it's hard to see this movie objectively. I wish it was a better movie, both in its construction (the filming and editing) and in the storytelling decisions (too much emphasis on empty searching, and too much torture, even after we get the point).Cruelty needs no sympathy, and this movie gives it none. But it gives it attention, offering only a solution in perseverance and romantic love. There are lots of evocative scenes of dancing and music, of wide open countryside, and of warmly lit interiors. It paints a picture of a beautiful country with a beautiful culture, just to show how a small tilt in a great place can turn to horrors.The final statistics of all the people "disappeared" under the Argentine dictatorship is an indictment of cruel dictators. The movie serves to remind us, and to paint the horrors, and it goes half way. I wish it had been a poetic, or raw, or inventive success as well.

I am pretty sure that it is not possible for someone other than an Argentine to make a film about this subject and have it matter. These are people who at the beginning of the terror supported it wholeheartedly. The military simply responded to what they saw was a terrorist threat by arresting without process and torturing. Starting small means starting; once you cross the line, everything else is trivial. And so 6 years of what ramped up to 3o police murders a day in Buenos Aires.So this thing lacks power as a story about Argentine horror. But even through all its faults, it still rings true and haunts about things at home: power corrupted and evil. Torture to protect citizens never does. The film is incredibly muffed, in pretty much all dimensions except...There are two good scenes. One is when the husband of the newly missing wife is comforted by his daughter in a somewhat sexual way. This was made for American consumption, and though the interaction may be genuinely Latin, the implication in this context is plain. It was a powerful scene and sets up all that follows.The second powerful scene is the unveiling of a spy. There is only a second that matters, when the man knows he is revealed and you see not panic but blame to his informant. It happens fact but it matters.Otherwise, what we have is a powerfully conceived set of folding narratives: a man as a playwright (precisely as in "The Lives of Others") in a film with deliberate dissonance. And him further as a psychic, telling the story to us and other characters as it happens to him. In other hands, this could have worked, especially with the intended fold from then there to now here.Tangos, l'exil de Gardel, was not good, but still better and at least genuine.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Banderas, once again finds himself in a movie that denounces a dictatorship and the crimes against humanity committed by a military junta. Like his character in the movie Of Love and Shadow (where he plays a young Chilean Francisco Leal), here he plays a young Argentinian Carlos Rueda, who finds himself involved in a tragedy bigger than life. And yet he finds that imagination and remembrance brings hope to those who suffer. A beautiful and moving film, with great interpretations (bravo to Emma who acts with a heavy Spanish accent) that enters your soul and makes you feel the pain of an atrocious regime. I loved it and I suggest it to all young people to see how the madness of few can lead a country to incredible pain and sufferance

I won't take away from the movie, it was good and dramatic. But I was disappointed in the projection of reality of the subject. First, the reality of why people were disappeared was barely touched upon. They mentioned the word "subversives" but they failed to project exactly what that meant, at least in my opinion. The fact that even in Operation Condor, the U.S. was involved and Henry Kissinger gave his blessing with his own words pretty much telling the Videla's government, do what you must, we understand, but hey can't you keep it out of the news because the publicity is bad and we are trying to help fund you...that was missed. Also the fact that people were ASSUMED to be communist sympathizers, whether or not they were, was sort of swept under the carpet to focus on Antonio Banderas other skills. What I did like was the fact that they tied it to the Nazis and rightfully so. What I didn't like was the fact that at the end of the movie they failed to note how many American citizens have been "disappeared" or are doing time in our own concentration camp in Cuba.I also was disappointed they failed to mention the babies that were taken from their mothers (which was a huge focus of the Abuelitos de Plaza Mayo) and sold to the high ranking soldiers or even sold to other wealthy people in various countries outside of Argentina. They only touched on the Wednesday helicopter rides, where people were thrown out to die. These things bothered me about the movie, because I think a movie of such relevant subject matter should tell the real story. Especially when it involved the death of so many innocent people. And I do believe it's time to stop making these incidents look isolated to individual countries and show how the Imperialistic values of a group of socialist Nazis has spread this mentality throughout the world and that's why the same practices are done all over. There is so much they could have done with this movie that wasn't done. Was it good? Yes. But it could have been great.