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Touches You

The Worst Film Ever

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Well, I usually don't see much of the foreign language films but after viewing Oscars giving a special award to such great films, I almost got swept off at viewing few films. This one too was one of them where a viewer can't get delight in each scene after scene. But there might be impacts ringing to-and-fro after finishing the whole. The story is quite engaging related to societal issues waving around Argentinian people and their disappeared families. How would one react on losing someone close is what depicted unwaveringly. This was the movie which made me cry at certain scenes. Some dialogs even made me numb. The power of this film lies in placing ourselves into the place of characters of the film. It derives the feelings inside us for how would we react when we are placed into situation of losing a very important thing of our life. Undoubtedly, this movie is the one which shows human emotions on some very realistic aspects of life. This film has also played some beautiful strokes in the field of analyzing history of Argentina. And that is what makes the film to watch with top determination.

I don't often quibble with some of the odd things the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does (Grace Kelly's Best Actress win over Judy Garland in 1955 is a good example), but 1985's Best Picture winner is one of them. OUT OF Africa, uncharacteristically for a Sydney Pollack film, was a bloated and unbearably boring biopic of a woman who at the end of the day was just not that interesting, despite a valiant attempt on the part of Meryl Streep in the lead. If I had been given a vote, and had to choose only an American-made film, I would have chosen THE COLOR PURPLE.But I digress. The best picture that I have ever seen that was made in 1985 was that year's winner for Best Foreign Language film: Luis Puenzo's extraordinary debut film LA HISTORIA OFICIAL, better known to the English-speaking world as THE OFFICIAL STORY. For a first film, the director's hand is remarkably sure here; he knows the characters and the territory, and his handling of the actors produces what in the theatre is often known as "magic." The film stars Norma Aleandro (in a fierce, towering performance that should have earned her an Oscar) as Alicia Marnet de Ibañez, a history teacher at a Buenos Aires high school, married to a successful businessman (Hector Alterio), raising their adopted five-year-old daughter Gaby (Analia Castro), and living the good life, blissfully, and one suspects later on, perhaps deliberately, unaware of what is happening and what has happened to her country in recent years (the film takes place shortly after the "dirty war" in which many Argentinians were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and killed). At first glance it seems incredible that a history teacher could be so blind to recent events, but as one of her students observes early in the film, "History is written by assassins." Alicia sends the student from the room. But a seed has been planted. She attends a school reunion (I am not sure if it is high school or college; I suspect the latter, but in the end it makes little difference) and is reunited with her old friend Ana (Chunchuna Villafañe, who also delivers an Oscar-worthy performance), who has been living abroad, in exile, for the past seven years. Ana comes to Alicia's home for dinner; Alicia's husband Roberto is immediately suspicious and uneasy, but does his best to hide it. Later, after Roberto has gone to bed, the two women sit up talking and Ana reveals, in a devastating scene, the torture that she was subjected to because of her relationship with one of the "enemies of the state." During this confession, Ana lets slip that many of the torture victims were pregnant women whose babies were stolen from them and sold to wealthy couples in secret adoptions, to which Alicia reacts almost violently: "Why are you telling me this??" Ana does not answer, but the seed that has been planted is starting to grow, and despite her love for her daughter, Alicia feels compelled to find out how her husband went about adopting the child. The strength of her bond with Gaby is displayed in a long, silent scene in which Alicia takes from the closet shelf the clothing the baby arrived in and looks at it with tears streaming down her face. But what has been set in motion cannot be stopped.I won't reveal any more. This is an exciting film, magnificently acted, written, and directed, and Aleandro's performance is one of the best pieces of work I have ever seen by any actor, male or female, and it is all the more remarkable because so much of it is internal. The camera lingers on Aleandro's face during key scenes as conflicting emotions flash by, one after the other, revealing both her inner turmoil and her resolve to discover the truth at any cost.A winner all around. And it should have gotten the Oscar. For Best Picture for starters, and also for Aleandro and Villafañe.

Consider the possibility that many of the children adopted by wealthy couples in Argentina might be orphans of 'Los Desapareaidos', the disappeared: those who vanished during the reign of terror that gripped the country after the fall of Isabel Perón. It sounds like speculative fiction, but what might be unthinkable in any other country is just another nightmare fact of life under the military junta. And yet, when a comfortable, conservative schoolteacher (Norma Aleandro) begins to question the background of her own adopted daughter, she does more than simply put her family at risk: in her dogged pursuit of the truth she recovers a measure of dignity and identity buried under a lifetime of complacent ignorance. The film invites comparison to the best thrillers of Costa-Gavras, but the impact is more personal than political, sparked by Aleandro's convincing portrait of a loving mother forced to choose between domestic security and an untroubled conscience. Her emotional performance helped earn the film a (well deserved) Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

I believe the filmmaker's purpose was to charge the viewer to ask the following questions: How far will I go in obtaining the truth of the world I live in for myself? Am I willing to make sacrifices and take risks in obtaining the truth? And, am I willing to suffer the opposition that will attempt to silence me in my journey? These questions are answered while the viewer lives vicariously through Alicia's own journey for the truth. Although the ending is ambiguous and the viewer never finds out whether Alicia obtains the truth of her daughter, it seemed to me implicit that she does. I believe that if the director had chosen (which thankfully he didn't) to extend the film a little longer, the viewer would have seen that Alicia consents in giving her daughter back to the elderly woman. I have four reasons for this, all which support the questions above.1). Alicia is the type of woman who wants nothing but the truth and that anything less would torment her mind with guilt. She expresses this guilt to her priest, telling him that she doesn't deserve her daughter if the adoption isn't legal. The lighting during this sequence is dark and dismal—a directing choice that reflects the inner-darkness Alicia is experiencing.2). It is implied through her conversation with the elderly woman that despite how much she loves her daughter, and, that to lose her would be a painful sacrifice, she would still stand for the truth and do what is right. And what is right the right choice? For Alicia, it is to give her daughter back to the rightful and secondary parent.3). Her tenacity to exhaust her abusive husband in telling her the truth, despite getting beaten by him, demonstrates her willingness to suffer all types affliction in order to arrive at the truth. There is a particular shot that demonstrates even the husband's belief that the right thing to do is to give the daughter back. At the end of the film, after the husband has beaten up Alicia and is listening to his daughter on the phone, the camera begins to slowly dolly towards his face. The shot persists for a good minute or so, capturing a single tear falling from his cheek. This suggested to me that despite the husbands love for his daughter, he was beginning to feel that it wasn't right for them to keep their daughter after all.4). After her husband storms out of the house refusing to listen to her and the elderly woman's case, the elderly woman asks Alicia, "Shall I expect a call from you tomorrow or shall I call?" The use of script development here through Alicia's willingness to initiate the phone call spoke volumes in suggesting that she truly believes her daughter is not lawfully hers. If she had said, "You call," it would have suggested that she was not only reluctant but also skeptical whether this woman's case was plausible.Even the title of the film, an element of production design, seemed to suggest the quest for what is true. Given the Spanish rendering, "La Historia Oficial," which in English is interpreted, "The Official History," there is an interesting contrast shown between the words of the English rendering, "The Official Story," and its original title in Spanish. The difference is in the words "history" and "story". The word history seems to suggest facts—the truth of what really happened. On the other hand, the word story seems to suggest fables—the lies used to cover up the truth. Either way you look at it, Alicia's search for the official history (truth) or the official story (lie) regarding her daughter works as a powerful way in conveying what the central theme of the film is—what is the truth and what are the lies.