Argentine director Luis Puenzo's first feature film, "The Official Story," is a masterpiece of political cinema.
Set in 1983 right after Argentina lost the Falkland Islands War to Great Britain, the film brings to life the story of the desaparecidos, or the "missing ones," alleged subversives whom the dictatorial regime had mysteriously whisked away.
The story Puenzo weaves is an intensely personal one in which the viewer's growing knowledge of the situation and accompanying unease matches that of the protagonist, Alicia.
The opening scenes of the film are calm as they depict Alicia's (Norma Aleandro's) comfortable life as a history teacher in her mid-forties, and her husband Roberto (Hector Alterio), a wealthy businessman with influential political connections.
At a high school reunion, Alicia meets an old friend, Ana, and they engage in friendly gossip.
But when Ana recounts to Alicia the reasons why she left the country and the tortures that followed her midnight abduction by the authorities, it turns into a tale of horror.
Alicia initially resists believing her stories until Ana tells her the subversives were kidnapped, tortured and killed, and their babies were often sold or given to couples with the right connections.
The brutal purging of dissenting voices that Ana speaks of took place around the same time that Alicia and Roberto adopted their daughter, Gaby.
Roberto had arranged the adoption and mentioned the exact details to Alicia. But, with her friend's harrowing tale in mind, Alicia starts looking for her daughter's true parents.
She gradually awakens to the fact that she has been shielded from reality by her husband's position and by her own unwillingness to search for the truth.
The film beautifully constructs scenes that mark her growing realization and horror, such as when a student tells Alicia, "history is written by the assassins," and when grandmothers protest in the streets about their vanished husbands, sons or grandsons.
Aleandro is magnificent in her portrayal of a character who evolves from an intelligent but privileged and unquestioning schoolteacher to a woman who searches for the truth with a frightening intensity.
In the end, she pursues the truth. Even though it will shame and maybe destroy Alicia by her complicity, it will nonetheless set her free.
While we sympathize with Alicia, it is not because her flaws and mistakes are hidden. While Roberto could have been cast as the villain, Puenzo makes his actions understandable.
