"The Official Story" won the Academy Award for best foreign film, but I do not believe it deserved it. The film is based in Argentina when the government dictatorship was making may people very angry, let us say. While public protests and outcries are at their peak, the mother of an adopted girl named Gaby, a child of a couple who was killed by the government, finds a woman who may well be her grandmother. The film follows a very melodramatic course as the mother and father prioritize. Overall, the film is borderline good (I gave it a seven). The brooding mother, trying to figure things out about her daughter, brought little to the table in acting, in my opinion. I found the familiar relations between the father and his kin much more interesting than the slowly developing daughter conflict. There are better films dealing with similar topics, and if this film was made in 1986, "Ran" should have crushed it for best foreign film.

source: The Official Story

Trailer—La historia oficial

La historia oficial

I love this movie. I don't enjoy political movies in general, like the ones that Costa Gavras make. Usually they are so busy educating people on the issues that they forget the real point of a movie - to tell a good story. The Official Story is an exception in the genre: it is well written, well acted, has characters that you can relate to... AND tells a story that helps you understand violence as committed by the state. It is moving, has a human dimension as opposed to epic and detached. A perfect 10.

A magnificent film about the Argentine Dictatorship, which lasted from 1976 to 1983, between 9,000 and 30,000 people were killed or disappeared, and dramatizes the search for the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo or Abuelas, who according to records had 172 missing children, one fiction, based on countless real cases, revolting, shocking, necessary, a well-produced and sad film, happily recovered... Excellent...

La Historia Official is a well-made film about awakening from passive complicity in evil, in this case, forced adoption. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo were and are an inspiration to those who struggle to uncover and resist abuses in adoption practices, be they the enslaved Irish women of the Magdalen laundries or the many indigenous peoples who had children forcibly removed from homes to be adopted by whites. Most of adoption does not involve abduction, but to turn a blind eye to the fact that it does exist, is to be passively complicit, as was the protagonist in this film. The scene in which the teacher realizes that tremendous evil has indeed been perpetrated, and that she may very well be the beneficiary of such evil, is staggering. Norma Aleandro is a talented enough actress that we believe her initial rejection of this revelation, and her gradual evolution from passive cohort to courageous seeker of the truth.

This film unfolds so purposefully as if each frame has been chosen with exquisite care. From the lighting to the framing of each shot to the near perfect performances the viewer goes on a journey into the darker and darker mystery as a loving adoptive mother must ask "where did this precious child come from?" If you want to get an inkling of life in Argentina in 1985 and the true meaning of "los disaparacidos" (the disappeared ones) see this one.

Its hard to convey just how moving this movie is. Its absolutely haunting, I thought about this flick for days afterwards. I don't think it represents the experiences of many Argentines during the era of the juntas, but it clearly shows how awful those times were and why Argentines never want to return to that situation again.

I saw this movie in my first-year Spanish class. I love all kinds of movies, both international and domestic. This is by far one of the best movies I have seen in the international field with particular focus on the character development of one woman who seems to have everything. In coming to terms with the truth of her lifestyle and the high price others have paid for her comfort, she becomes a heroine who must give up almost everything she has loved and felt identified who she is. This movie is both heartbreaking and reassuring for its audience. I highly recommend it as a thoughtful depiction of how ignoring politics can imply inadvertently becoming an accomplice.