It's too easy and it may be reductive, in dealing with such a film, to say that it is about the children of Argentinean desaparecidos, that it is about an obscure moment of present history, that it is a witness or an accusation concerning a hidden series of crimes that are aimed to carry to the surface. That is surely the intention of the director, but the audience may freely say that they're not interested in the subject; moreover, all this may lead to think that it consist of a sort of documentary or a film-dossier with TV features. It isn't. Without subtracting the importance of the historical denounce underneath, another way of looking at it has to be taken into account: it is also (or above all) a film on doubt and deception. Which son, more than the protagonist of the story, had ever been better deceived? His parents are not his real parents, nevertheless he has been guiltily snatched out by his true mother's arms, and his father is an unpunished criminal. Besides, the illusion of having found a sister (rejected at the beginning, hoped little by little as the story proceeds) is mocked by a reality that, together with horror, carries on doubts and uncertainties: the true identity of the boy comes out, but the one of the girl who fights for truth, persuaded to be his twin sister, doesn't. Trapped in an authentic existential drama, the boy can't do but searching a solution that has to be, as well as tragic, symbolic and meaningful, since his life has now, no longer, any meaning. Thus, the movie goes beyond the historical facts and becomes a private but universal tragedy of deception.
Review of Figli/Hijos
