The Official Story [VHS]

The Official Story [VHS]
by Luis Puenzo

The Official Story [VHS]

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Product details

Actor: Chunchuna Villafa?e, Guillermo Battaglia, H?ctor Alterio, Hugo Arana, Norma Aleandro
Director: Luis Puenzo
Cinematographer: F?lix Monti
Writer: Luis Puenzo
Editor: Juan Carlos Mac?as
Producer: Marcelo Pi?eyro
Writer: A?da Bortnik
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 112 minutes
Release Date: 1997-11-11
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Fox Lorber
Studio: Fox Lorber

VHS Movie Reviews of The Official Story [VHS]

Movie Review: Memory, Justice and Truth: The Human Struggle
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a beautiful, extraordinarily well crafted film about the aftermath of the Dirty War in Argentina from 1976 to 1983. There are several contexts that director Puenzo features in this excellent screenplay.

Alicia, the heroine of this film (played by Norma Aleandro) is a high school Argentine History teacher. Her students, by utilizing their own critical abilities and independent research, help her to realize that history is not just about the regime-certified "facts" but rather about freedom, memory and truth. The national anthem at the beginning of the film speaks to Argentine ideals about freedom.

Alicia's character grows and changes, with help from the Grandmothers, who were actually the parents of the disappeared, and other peaceful protesters that call for truth, and the recovery of their grandchildren who were taken from their parents at birth while in captivity by the Argentine military. This film works beautifully level through its alignment of the personal and the historical changes, with Alicia representing the former.

The society and the individual both undergo monumental development during this era. As Ana, the friend of Alicia, suggests when she finally confronts Alicia's husband Roberto, the ship may well be sinking. It is also interesting to see how the protesters connect, and draw in support from Argentinians, over the loss of the War in the Malvinas/Falklands with the evilness of the military rulers. (One can only wonder what would have happened if Hitler had not lost the war with the Soviet Union, which was a decisive battleground in the Second World War).

It is also gratifying see how Ana confronts the former classmate, who heartlessly turns a blind eye to the suffering and unspeakable atrocities that had been waged in this Dirty War against people like Ana, who fortunately got away to Europe before returning to a newer, more enlightened Argentina that is just beginning to grow up, a growing up that reflects a return to its ideals and principles expressed in its national anthem in the opening scene. This film is a work of art that speaks to the need for truth, for justice, for democracy and is a message well worth repeating to people everywhere.

Movie Review: Forgettable and slow
Summary: 3 Stars

The Bottom Line:

I salute this film for trying to uncover an awful chapter in Argentinian history, but it's so understated and slow for the majority of its running length that it never quite manages to qualify as entertainment; if you're interested in the subject you might want to check it out, but I think the average viewer will not come away thrilled.

2.5/4

Movie Review: Overcoming the banality of evil, corruption in adoption
Summary: 4 Stars

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.

Movie Review: Historia Oficial
Summary: 5 Stars

Events portraid really happened and many of this families are still looking for their love ones. A reality we all should be remembered with great films like this one!

Movie Review: What a great movie!
Summary: 5 Stars

This movie depicts the reality that the people of Argentina experienced in the late 70s and early 80s. Unfortunately, many experience even today! The acting is superb. If you enjoy watching foreign films, this is a great one from South America!!!

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Summary of The Official Story [VHS]

Luis Puenzo's shattering 1985 story about the collision of middle-class aspirations and government lies in Argentina packs a wallop a viewer never forgets. A happy couple (Norma Aleandro and Hector Alterio) enamored of their careers (she's a teacher proffering pro-government revisionist history, he's a successful entrepreneur) are made all the more joyous by the fulfilling presence of an adopted baby in their lives. In time, however, Aleandro's character begins to suspect that the child was taken from a woman who is among Argentina's "disappeared," i.e., a likely victim of violent political repression. With that genie out of the bottle, everything about the couple's life together begins to look doctored and glossed-over to her, including the marriage itself. Puenzo (Old Gringo) leads the mounting suspicion and conflict between husband and wife toward an astonishing eruption of suppressed feelings, a release of buried truths that is more than the story of one wobbly marital union. It is an allegory for a nation fearing its recent past. A powerful experience. --Tom Keogh

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