Imagining Argentina (2003)

• Year: 2003
• Released: 16 Apr 2004
• Country: Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Argentina
• Adwords: 1 nomination
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314197/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/imagining_argentina
• Metacritics:
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Spanish
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
• Runtime: 107 min
• Writer: Lawrence Thornton, Christopher Hampton
• Director: Christopher Hampton
• Cast: Antonio Banderas, Emma Thompson, Rubén Blades
• Keywords: 1970s, buenos aires, argentina, supernatural, disappearance,

	6.1/10
	27/100
	31% – Critics
	71% – Audience

Imagining Argentina Storyline

A W Bergh, Stockholm:Heard about the green Ford Falcons of Buenos Aires? Death mobiles they was called and were doing the same dirty job for president Videla and a string of junta generals, in the 1970s mimicking their highly successful colleague dictator Pinochet across the border in Chile. Kids protesting against expensive school bus fares could be taken for a ride and never seen again. Disappearances, desaparecidos, was the name of the game and seems to the mayor training for the brave military men crushing the enemies of Argentina in their dirty war against opposition during the late 1970s and early 80s. Performing roughly 40 000 desaparecidos until they met real soldiers on the Falklands in 1982 and was beaten to pulp in a few days by the British. The military rule was toppled but their henchmen have to this day not even been brought to justice. Only leaving a trail of wailing crazy mothers circling the famous Plaza de Mayo Square in central Buenos Aires, flashing large pictures of their murdered sons and daughters. A pity Imagining Argentina is such bomb telling the story. Costa-Gavras took less than a decade to make Missing, to give us a fair shot of what Pinochets CIA-backed bloodstained fascist coup in Chile was all about. A heck of a better job than this quarter of a century late badly told yarn. While Jack Lemon tormented the American ambassador on site to find his missing son in Santiago and actually had the bastard to admit that eggs had to be broken in order to save dear American investments down here on their backyard clairvoyant Banderas use voodoo to figure out the whereabouts of his vanished wife (and later on his already lifeless daughter). To make it even worse, to no avail as it turns out. It chiefly brings him out on the huge Pampas only to meet an old Jewish couple, keeping exotic birds as a hobby(!), lecturing him on the horrors of Nazi Germany. Thats amazingly about all the politics to learn from decades of Latin America military violence in this story. Need I tell more? Not even Leonard Maltin bothered to include the film in his Movie Guide

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Imagining Argentina Movie Reviews

cruel reality

Please excuse my English, now that it is my third language. I was born and raised in Argentina; I currently work in Buenos Aires at a café, until I get my bachelor degree in naval architecture. As crazy as it might sound, my grandfather disappeared in the 1970s, and never came back. Perhaps to you… this was just a movie, you can rate it as you want or give the names you like to. But I found myself dumb founded with this film, I felt the worst anguish while seeing it, and forced myself to keep on watching and to keep on remembering. I can not find words in English nor Spanish to describe how deeply this movie has gotten to me. It’s been a long time since it happened, but I see most of this film as my mind portraying old stories that my grandmother used to tell me when I asked about the dad of my dad. A film where reality is described at its best and where a part of me knows that justice in this country is just a word with no meaning, it was before, and it is now. I win nothing by saying this, nor I feel better, I just thought that perhaps I should comment on the impact the movie has had on someone like me, a normal guy who studies and works in country where future has little by little lost its meaning.

Psychic powers and Videla’s dictatorship…

Antonio Banderas plays a theatre director whose wife (Emma Thompson) has been kidnapped by the Secret Service of Argentinian’s Videla’s dictatorship (1976-1983). Soon he discovers he has sort of a psychic power that allows him to predict the future, and to find out what has happened to her wife and to some of the other missing people (there were +/- 30000 missing people during Videla’s dictatorship). Now I wonder: Is it necessary to introduce that paranormal stuff in a movie about Argentinian dictatorship? I mean, you got one of the most cruel and repressive dictatorships ever, and that’s enough to make a shocking movie. The psychic powers, the vissions of Banderas’ character detract the attention from the main line: the denunciation of that regimen led by General Videla and supported by USA Government, and the atrocities that were committed, the sistematic violation of human rights, and so… Especially when you have two well known stars in the cast, and the movie may have some international impact (which didn’t have any of the argentinian movies that talked about the same issue).

Anyway, some parts of the movie perfectly portraits the lack of freedom in Argentina along those 7 years, and there are some sequences really shocking (in particular the ones at the prison where Emma Thompson’s character gets imprisoned -and tortured, and raped-). Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson play their roles with so much intensity, especially Mrs. Thompson, one of the best dramatic actresses from the last 20 years (in my opinion).

That’s all. I just want to add that this kind of movies are so necessary, people need them not to forget some of the darkest passages of human history. Especially they need them there in the United States Of America, where no one knows a thing about latin-american dictatorships (most of them supported by the White House).

My rate: 7/10

The Tragedy of Argentina’s “Desaparecidos”

Argentina’s Dirty War and the regime of the Generals from 1976 to 1983 is one of the dark secrets of history and has been examined by poets, writers such as Colm Toibin (and here, Lawrence Thornton in his novel from which the film was adapted), and journalists. And yet the silence about this period of time is deafening, especially since the amnesty this past June releasing the perpetrators from all responsibility of this terrifying activity and time in Argentina. Now, with the current ‘silencing’ of our own covert CIA activities and tortures in the name of a fight against terrorism, this overlooked film takes on particular potency. And for whatever reasons the film doesn’t succeed as a great movie, at least it is a red flag bravely waving.

In 1976 the intellects, professors, journalists and writers began disappearing, kidnapped, taken to secret hideaways, tortured, raped, and disposed of all in the guise of protecting the viability of the military regime. Carlos (Antonio Banderas) runs a children’s theater and is married to Cecilia (Emma Thompson) who writes articles about the “desaparecidos” despite the warnings from Carlos and their close friends Silvio (Rubén Blades) and Esme (Maria Canals). Their daughter Teresa (Leticia Dolera) is a young girl who is conflicted about the feelings of her parents in this scandalized government. Cecilia is abducted, becomes one of the dreaded desaparecidos, and Carlos commits himself to finding her. He discovers he has clairvoyant powers and holds meetings in his garden to help parents and loved ones of the desaparecidos to cope. Working with Teresa he tries to envision Cecilia’s whereabouts and the film’s dénouement and conclusion deal with this breathless seeking.

The acting if good as expected from this cast. The direction is fast paced, but the problem is one of distance from the passion of Carlos. For some reason Banderas elected to keep such a low profiles that his desperation to find Cecilia is somewhat muted. But as stated above the real success of this fine little film is the message it carries and that message is too close to home to ignore. The musical score and cinematography (and the incidental wonderful Tango dancing) are superb. Recommended. Grady Harp