In Argentina of the late nineteen-seventies and early eighties, a dictatorship was in place over the population who were seeing to it that many of the citizens who spoke up about the repression, or just knew people who did, went missing, with rumours of tortures and executions rife. Now the war for the Falklands is over with the junta defeated, they are on shaky ground as protests against their regime increase, but there are still those who do not think about the terrible hardships their countrymen have suffered, such as middle-aged schoolteacher Alicia (Norma Aleandro). Starting a new term, she sternly informs her students she will not accept any questioning of her authority, but is perturbed when they appear convinced that the government are actually fascists...
But that's not her problem, it's her adopted daughter who becomes the problem, not through misbehaving but thanks to her actual identity. The Official Story, or La historia oficial as it was known in its native land, brought home the reality of the hardships of the dictatorship in Argentina to a worldwide audience and now those days are slipping into history it remains a reminder of many horrendous human rights abuses, not only there, but wherever a totalitarian order rules over a victimised population. What director Luis Puenzo did was not concentrate on the harrowing fate of one of the disappeared, he was more interested in preaching to those who had been previously unaware of the facts.
Political films can be a mixed bag, especially the ones which have an important tale to relate as the pressing nature of conveying the points take precedent over telling an engaging story which will bring those issues to life; ideally they should appeal to both the heart and the mind. Puenzo's approach was far from a stunning exercise in technique, largely because he couldn't afford to get flashy and showy when his cast and crew were being threatened with all sorts of dire warnings should they opt to continue making his movie. Thus he shot it at his own house in secret for much of the time, eschewing any attempts to make it look anything other than functional, even mundane, relying on the outrage the audience would feel about the state of affairs depicted to bring this to life.
What you had was somewhere between a hardhitting message movie, with the goal to educate the viewer just as the main character is going through her own political conscience-raising, and an old time classic weepie, where a heroine will have her mettle tested by some problem related to her gender, be it romance or motherhood. It was the latter which concerned us in this case, for the daughter Gaby (Analia Castro: even she was threatened by the authorities, in spite of being a little girl) has a past Alicia knows nothing about, she took it for granted that the moppet was an orphan and never thought to ask her husband Roberto (Héctor Alterio) where she came from originally, or what her background and circumstances were. When Alicia grows aware of a protest movement, she grows troubled.
That protest movement was similar to ones which happened in various fascist societies, especially in South America: Chile is probably the most famous instance (hey, Sting wrote a song on the subject) of the grandmothers and mothers of missing persons and political prisoners demonstrating for the truth of what happened to their family members vanished under the dictatorships. As it turns out, Roberto has arranged, as far too many in his place of privilege did, to allocate the young children of those disappeared to foster parents more sympathetic to the cause of the ruling party, which is why Gaby has ended up as his house doted over by his wife. The more Alicia learns, the more she wakes up to the extremely serious nature of the society she lives in, which leads to scenes expressly designed to have the audience wiping away a tear or two, especially when the daughter is such an innocent who will see that innocence destroyed when she finds out the truth of her existence. Not a slick film, then, but a valuable reminder. Music by Atilio Stampone.
