Just a note--there was a song by an Argentine singer, Mercedes Sosa, and the song was by Chilean Violeta Parra. Otherwise, some tango music would have been nice. I am also a fan of "Bones" and of Kathy Reichs' series of detective novels, but this one was problematic. Glad to see the "dirty war" examined on a popular TV show, and the Nazi escape to Latin America, but should have been more carefully presented. It's like how Antonio Banderas, a Spaniard, plays Pancho Villa, and Ruben Blades, a Panameñan, plays a Mexican policeman in other movies.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Sarajevo
(2014 TV Movie)
Well- mounted historical drama
16 March 2017
Warning: Spoilers
This dramatization of "the shot heard round the world," the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, turns the story into a police procedural with at its center an impeccably groomed detective who faces difficulties with the bosses, as is often true with the police procedural. This incorruptible outsider who rides a bike, not a carriage, and doesn't smoke, develops a theory of the assassination that doesn't entirely jibe with the historical reality, but which is very entertaining. Although ten young Serbs were stationed along the Archduque's path, Pfeffer, the hero, finds that they are actually tools of the German and Austrian military, who want to start a war with Serbia. You can imagine how well this goes over. I found myself skeptical, since I remember seeing the museum in Sarajevo glorifying Gavrilo Princip and the movement for Serbian independence. Nonetheless, the movie is beautifully made, with colorful costumes emerging from the shadows of all these conspiracy theories, beautiful horses, old buildings and lovely interiors. There is a romance between the Jewish Pfeffer and a beautiful married Serb heiress to make a change from assassination, torture, and execution. Recommended for lovers of historical costume dramas.
Murder with Iguanas
1 June 2016
This was a delightful combination of a true life murder story and a portrait of a place vitally important in the history of science. A German couple flees human society and the hints of another approaching world war in the thirties. He is a World War I Veteran and a retired doctor. She is an M.S. sufferer who idolizes the former doctor and aspiring Nietzchean philosopher. Both have left their respective spouses to come and live a Robinson Crusoe existence on one of the smaller of the Galápagos Islands. They are soon joined by another family and a woman travelling with two lovers who wants to build a hotel on the island. By the end of the period covered by the documentary the doctor and the hotel developer and both of her lovers are dead. Since the survivors wrote their memoirs and there was ample film footage of the Dramatis Personae, there is almost too much information. Yet at the end of the movie, we don't really know who killed who. We hear the words of each person, ably read by Cate Blanchett and other clear voiced German-accented people. We learn what became of the survivors and their children--who stayed and who went off on their own adventures. And during all this time, we see the animals of the Galapagos climbing over the rocks, gently eating from people's hands, less savage than the humans.
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