Try as Argentina might, the country cannot shake off the memory of the 1976-1983 Dirty War, a period in which the Argentine government disappeared 30,000 of its citizens on suspicion of being leftists. And that suits Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo just fine. This organization of mothers startled the world during the late 1970s with their bravery in demanding an answer from Argentina's ruling military cabal as to the whereabouts of their disappeared children. They still gather in Argentina's historic Plaza de Mayo on a weekly basis, armed with pictures of the disappeared and the moral gravitas of motherhood, vowing to march forever so the world never forgets their country's shameful actions.
Recently, Las Madres have turned their focus toward publicizing one of the more macabre facets of the Dirty War: the selling of the children of the disappeared to rich Argentines. The search for such a child fuels the plot of The Official Story, a 1985 Argentine film that received that year's Best Foreign Picture Oscar. But what makes the movie so powerful is not just the disturbing subject matter but also its examination of the importance of keeping history alive lest it fade away.
Set in 1983, The Official Story begins in an all-boys school as Alicia (Norma Aleandro) lectures her students on the importance of history. “No people can survive without history,” she shares with her students. “History is the memory of the people.” The next scene provides a harsh contradiction to her lesson: a business cocktail party attended by Alicia and her husband, Roberto (Héctor Alterio), where entrepreneurs and military men disparage the disappeared, remarking that Argentina and the world will forget about the victims of the Dirty War as time passes on.
Alicia, comfortable in her middle-class life, doesn't want to hear about politics. Later, while attending a high school reunion, she's surprised to see Ana (Chunchuna Villafane), who has returned to Argentina after years of living in Europe. Alicia can't comprehend why her circle of friends views Ana with contempt or why Roberto is openly hostile toward Ana.
She finds out in an amazing four-minute scene filmed without a cut in which Ana segues from cracking a joke about spilled eggnog to tearfully revealing that she left Argentina after the military kidnapped her, tortured her and promised to kill her if she didn't leave the country. Alicia sobs alongside her long-gone friend but kicks Ana out when she recalls that many pregnant women who were tortured had their babies taken from them upon birth. But it's too late: Alicia starts suspecting that her adorable adopted daughter, Gaby (Analia Castro), might have been one of those abducted children.
Roberto—who handled Gaby's adoption without Alicia's participation—is visibly annoyed by her constant inquiries regarding Gaby's origins, reminding Alicia that they agreed never to discuss it. But Alicia's conscience is restless, and she soon seeks assistance from the Plaza de Mayo mothers to unearth the truth, damn the consequences.
It becomes obvious as The Official Story progresses that Roberto did, in fact, purchase Gaby and owed his success to actively participating in the Dirty War. But Alicia doesn't care anymore whether her bourgeois lifestyle disintegrates. “I always thought I'd do anything to prohibit losing what I loved,” she tells Sara (Chela Ruiz), a woman she suspects is Gaby's biological grandmother, as they ride on a train to meet Roberto near the film's conclusion. Roberto feels differently. When Alicia reveals to Roberto that Sara might be Gaby's real grandmother, Roberto rudely kicks Sara out and then subjects Alicia to a savage beating, bashing her head against the wall and slamming the door on her hand. By then, Roberto and Alicia's fates are set: Alicia leaves Roberto to face his comeuppance as she treks off to expose his involvement in Gaby's kidnapping.
Director Luis Puenzo made The Official Story just two years after the end of the Dirty War, which explains an immediacy to the film that still resonates today. The Plaza de Mayo mothers provided a large part of that urgency, supplying Puenzo with photos of the disappeared and allowing him to film their protests. They also shared anecdotes for Puenzo to re-create, which explains the startling brutality of many scenes. A professor calmly confesses to Alicia he once left his plum university position after finding all his papers shredded. The same professor warns Alicia that a damning report she had written on an insubordinate student would be the student's death sentence. Most chilling, however, is a re-creation of a raid, with boys firing toy guns swarming into Gaby's room as she plays with her doll. Even children, Puenzo shows, have been corrupted by the malfeasance of the country's adults. The only way to correct such a trauma is to expose it—as The Official Storydid and Las Madres continue to do—so a country can learn from its evils.
The Official Story is the concluding film in the Peace and War on Planet Earth film series at Cal State Fullerton, Humanities Amphitheatre 110, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton, (714) 278-3498. Sun., 5:30 p.m.; Discussion and reception follow screening. Free.
