Emma Thomson, Antonio Banderas, and the dark period of 1976-1983 in the history of modern Argentina, would be adequate elements in the hands of director Christopher Hampton to produce a very interesting motion picture without mixing any clairvoyance in the script. However, the film documents with some success an appalling portrait of the brutality of General Videla's regime, and gives the opportunity to the oblivious onlooker to get a shocking glimpse of the methods employed by the military to secure their stay in power. The core issue in the movie is the so called "El Proceso," or the "Dirty War", when almost 30,000 people were kidnapped by the regime's secret police, tortured and ultimately "disappeared" by their abductors. Some scenes, particularly the repeated rape sessions, are pretty dreadful, but they communicate the right message to the viewer and record for the sake of history what was happening in Argentina at that time. Emma Thompson in the role of the "disappeared" journalist Cecilia Rueda is always an exceptional performer. Antonio Banderas, acting as her husband Carlos, is less convincing and his act is losing impetus every time he plays the clairvoyant who can foresee what will happen to the "desaparecidos" including his wife and his daughter. You may see the film to know how it ends. It helps anyway to remember how the real history unfolded. General Galtieri replaced Videla, led his nation to a lost war with Great Britain over the Falklands, and in 1983 Argentina returned to civilian rule. Following Carlos Menem election in 1989, an amnesty law was passed remissive of the criminal acts of that period. Last June 2005, the Supreme Court of Argentina scrapped that Amnesty Law, thus lifting all protection against prosecution of the former military officers responsible for human rights abuses during the dictatorship years.
Review of Imagining Argentina
