Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 08/14/20

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, August 14, 2020

The Official Story (Luis Puenzo, 1985)

Héctor Alterio and Norma Aleandro in The Official Story

Cast: Norma Aleandro, Héctor Alterio, Chunchuna Villafañe, Hugo Arana, Guillermo Battaglia, Chela Ruíz, Patricio Contreras, Maria Luisa Robledo, Anibal Morixe, Jorge Petraglia, Analia Castro. Screenplay: Luis Puenzo, Aída Bortnik. Cinematography: Félix Monti. Production design: Abel Facello. Film editing: Juan Carlos Macías. Music: Atilio Stampone.

The Official Story is a gripping film about guilt that might have more resonance in this politically charged year than in any other since it was made. Norma Aleandro plays Alicia, a woman whose suspicions about the parentage of her adopted daughter, Gaby (Analia Castro), lead her to investigate her way into the sufferings of others and thereby to share in that suffering. The film might be criticized for coming at the sordid history which underlies it, the "disappeared" citizens who opposed the Argentine junta that took power in 1976, from the wrong point of view, for turning the complacent bourgeois into victims. But the victimization game is all too easy to play, and I think it's better to see The Official Story as a film about the consequences of evil. Luis Puenzo controls the many ironies of Alicia's story, such as the fact that she's a history teacher who doesn't understand the history of own times, without letting his film become too heavy-handed and didactic. For me the climax of the film comes not when Alicia makes her shattering discovery, but in what spurs her to set out on her quest for the truth: a reunion with an old friend, Ana (Chunchuna Villafañe), who fled the country after being arrested and tortured by the junta. It begins as a light-hearted moment, with the two women getting snockered on egg nog, laughing together until the laughter turns hysterical, and Ana delivers the full story of her torture and abuse. It's a moment that brilliantly evokes the fragility of friendship and the consequences of moral and political choice.