Imagining Argentina

Since I rented two DVDs that are due back tomorrow, I decided to stay up late last night and watch one of them. I got "Imagining Argentina" with Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson.

All I knew about it was that it was set during the years of the dictatorship. I sort of figured the story would be obvious. And it was pretty obvious. Carlos (Antonio Banderas) and Ceclia (Emma Thompson) are married. Cecelia is a reporter and writes articles denouncing the disappearances. She is taken into custody, but there is no trace of her. The military denies that they have her. The rest of the film is about Carlos trying to find her.

The film begins with Carlos saying that people want to forget what happened. Some people say that if we remember, we will continue to live in pain. A clip of the Madres that I have on my blog appears in the opening credits. The film is suspenseful and disturbing, but overall, I think it is worth seeing.

My question after seeing the film that Hernan recommended, "Garage Olimpo", which dealt with the disappearance and torture of one woman, was how it happened. I wanted to know if people knew that people were disappearing, or if it were some Kafkaesque scenario where people just disappeared and only their family members noticed.

At least the way it was portrayed in this film, it was obvious. People were picked up by plainclothes men in green Ford Falcons. Most of them were never seen again. But the arrests were not done discreetly under the cover of darkness, at least in the film, they were done in broad daylight, and people saw it happening. Those who denounced the disappearances were also disappeared.

What all of this means is that it would have taken a lot of courage to speak out against what was happening, and speaking out would come with the risk of being detained, tortured and killed. I didn't see any way to stop what was happening other than to allow it to stop of its own momentum, which is the most disturbing part of the whole thing. Could foreign governments have intervened? If so, how? Could people protest what was happening? Some did, and they disappeared. I wonder how much of what is happening with the detentions, disappearances and tortures of people of Middle-Eastern descent in the US is similar to what happened here during the dirty war.

At the end of the film, they provide statistics on disappearances. Chile - 4,000, Guatemala - 50,000, Argentina - 30,000, Iraq - 90,000.

I don't know about the disappearances in Iraq, when they took place, who was behind them. I know that there are death squads operating there now, and I believe they are on our side. But the governments of Chile, Argentina and Guatemala that were responsible for these atrocities were supported and funded by us. What surprised me about the figures was that the numbers seemed so low in Chile, and yet, Pinochet and the coup there seem to get so much more press than Argentina. I was aware that there was a dirty war here, but I always thought it paled in comparison to what happened in Chile.

So, for anyone who would like to see a movie about what happened in Argentina during the dirty war, I think "Imagining Argentina" is a good film. While it is fiction, I think it does a good job of documenting some of what happened, how it happened, and how it was possible. It's a good wake-up call. When fanatics take over the government, power corrupts. I believe that what happened here is a definite possibility for us in the US. I wonder if it is already happening and we're just too much in denial, or too blind to see it.