{"id":14064,"date":"2022-12-25T20:32:20","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T01:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=14064"},"modified":"2022-12-25T20:32:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-26T01:32:20","slug":"argentina-1985-gives-visibility-to-the-disappeared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=14064","title":{"rendered":"Argentina, 1985, Gives Visibility To The Disappeared"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year marked Argentina\u2019s triumph on multiple fronts, from the victory of the World Cup in the field of sports, to having a motion picture arriving to the Oscar\u2019s shortlist and Golden Globes nominees. The film in question is Argentina, 1985<\/i><\/b>, directed by Santiago Mitre and presented at the 79th<\/sup> Venice International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

The story is set in the year 1985, when Argentine prosecutors Julio C\u00e9sar Strassera (Ricardo Dar\u00edn) and Luis Moreno-Ocampo (Peter Lanzani) find themselves engaged in an unprecedented trial, the one against the leaders of the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983, including President Jorge Rafael Videla (Marcelo Pozzi).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Argentina, 1985 <\/i><\/b>is a love letter to the Trial of the Juntas, that prosecuted all those responsible for making \u201cdisappear\u201d thirty thousand people from public life, because the government considered their political views unacceptable. The politicians whose hands are covered in blood include: Emilio Eduardo Massera (Joselo Bella), Roberto Eduardo Viola (H\u00e9ctor Balcone), Armando Lambruschini, Orlando Ram\u00f3n Agosti (Jorge Gregorio), Omar Graffigna, Leopoldo Galtieri (Carlos Ihler), Jorge Anaya (Sergio Sanchez) and Basilio Lami Dozo (Marcelo L\u00f3pez).<\/p>\n

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The screenplay written by Santiago Mitre and Mariano Llin\u00e1s powerfully retraces the joined efforts of the legal team that fought for the justice of the desaparecidos<\/i>, who were secretly abducted and killed by a military government. Argentina, 1985<\/i><\/b> takes shape, through a phenomenal cast, within the walls of the house of a middle-class citizen. Julio with his wife Silvia (Alejandra Fechner), his daughter Ver\u00f3nica (Gina Mastronicola) and son Juli\u00e1n (Santiago Armas Estevarena), leads the life of a man who wants to guarantee a safe space in his home, as much as in the judicial offices where he works. His private life extends to the public: Strassera\u2019s desire to protect his family expands to his people.<\/p>\n

Santiago Mitre has dealt before with the exploration of characters battling between corrupt political systems and the urge to make honesty prevail. In his 2017 film The Summit<\/i><\/b>, Mitre had already assigned Ricardo Dar\u00edn with the role of a protagonist who found himself in the eye of the storm. This time in Argentina, 1985<\/i><\/b> the challenge is greater because it displays the time when \u00a1Nunca m\u00e1s!<\/i> became the expression used by the people to repudiate State terrorism.<\/p>\n

Argentina\u2019s Dirty War is an execrable chapter in human history and the trial that brought down the top hierarchs of a fascist-like government was \u2014 as Strassera defined it \u2014 \u201cthe most important after the Nuremberg Trials<\/i>.\u201d The trial is not only an opportunity to come to terms with the crimes against humanity perpetrated and kept silent by the old regime, but to ensure once and for all the continuity of democracy in Argentina. The film shows the salient stages of the court proceedings as a nation-specific circumstance, to spread a universal warning. The depiction of this dark moment in Argentine history is important as a reminder for countries worldwide of what may happen when anti-democratic forces creep in our lives. The film is much more than a cautionary tale: it doesn\u2019t want to preach to the masses, but it does retrace past events in a way that they can become extremely eloquent for our present time.<\/p>\n

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This call to attention comes during the speech given in court by Strassera, who makes an evocative consideration. He draws an analogy between a literary passage and the repression in Argentina: \u201cDante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy saved the seventh circle of hell for the violent ones: For all those who harm others through the use of force. And in that same hell, he submerged in a river of boiling and nauseating blood, a specific type of doomed, which the poet described as follows: \u2018Tyrants are these who dealt in bloodshed and pillaging. Here, they lament their pitiless mischiefs\u2019.<\/i>\u201d These words reverberate today in every nation confronting warfare.<\/p>\n

Strassera managed to defeat the violence without any weapon. He was armed with words alone, which penetrated with more vigour than any method utilised by the military junta. This is why it seems appropriate to quote his closing argument to allow every reader to muse on the force available to humanity to behave conscionably: \u201cYour Honour, this trial and its conviction are important and necessary for the Argentinian Nation, which has been offended by atrocious crimes. Their very atrocity turns the hypothesis of impunity into a monstrous one. Unless the moral sense of the Argentinians has descended to tribal levels, nobody can allow that kidnapping, torture and murder become political incidents. Or \u2018collateral damage in combat.\u2019 Now that the Argentinian people have recovered the government and control of its institutions, I take the responsibility of stating on its behalf that sadism is neither a political ideology, nor a war strategy, but a moral perversion. This trial and the sentence I am advocating for, we’re responsible for setting a peace based not in oblivion, but in memory. Not in violence, but in justice. This is our opportunity. It might be the last one. Your Honours, I wish to waive any claim to originality in concluding this argument. I want to use…a quote that doesn\u2019t belong to me, because it already belongs to the entire Argentinian people. Your Honours, \u2018Never Again. [<\/i>\u00a1Nunca m\u00e1s!<\/i>]\u2019<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

Final Grade: A<\/p>\n

Check out more of Chiara\u2019s articles<\/a><\/p>\n