The Official Story (La historia oficial) |  | Director: Luis Puenzo
Actors: Norma Aleandro, Héctor Alterio, Chunchuna Villafañe, Hugo Arana, Guillermo Battaglia
Studio: Koch Lorber Films
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.98
Buy New: $12.89
as of 9/8/2010 12:40 CEST details
You Save: $12.09 (48%)
New (14) Used (5) Collectible (1) from $12.89
Seller: cddvd4u
Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 22,883
Format: Color, Dolby, Enhanced, Subtitled, NTSC
Languages: English (Subtitled), Spanish (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Running Time: 112 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 741952303190
ISBN: 141720057X
UPC: 741952303190
EAN: 9781417200573
ASIN: B0002TSZKG
Theatrical Release Date: November 8, 1985
Release Date: November 9, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
An Argentine teacher believes her adopted daughter's parents may have been murdered political prisoners and begins a quest to learn the truth.
Amazon.com
This is one of those rare political films that transcend politics with a stirring emotional story. Argentinean first-time director Luis Puenzo tells the story of a strong-willed teacher who tries to learn the true identity of her adopted daughter's father, coming to suspect that he was a political prisoner. Her political awakening is actually an emotional one as well because of her detached persona. Ironically, even though she is a teacher, she doesn't connect with people very well, thinking of history in the most abstract terms. But she learns the painful truth of present-day life. Tautly directed by Puenzo, The Official Story was a 1985 Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Film, with a riveting performance by Norma Aleandro. --Bill Desowitz
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 29
 Powerful, moving, emotional story. August 3, 2010
Jim (Illinois)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the most emotionally powerful political films I have ever seen. We witness an Argentine history teacher's awakening to the truth behind her daughter's adoption. It was filmed shortly after the fall of Argentina's military dictatorship. During the dictatorship in the late 1970s and early 1980s there were tens of thousands of Argentines including children who Disappeared without a trace. Today(2010) visitors to Buenos Aires can still see the mothers and grandmothers marching and protesting for an accounting of their missing relatives.
When I first saw this at a film festival shortly after its release in the 1980s, I knew nothing about the Disappeared. Since then I have become a social dancer of the Argentine tango. So I decided to watch the DVD with this different perspective...and an interest inArgentina's history. The dictatorship forbid tango dancing for political reasons. A scene in which one of the characters relates that during a raid on her apartment her poster of Gardel was torn to "shreds" hints at that. Dancers were arrested if they gathered for milongas. Most American tango dancers that I know do not know this part of tango's history.
I highly recommend this film.
Family, love, politics and repression January 19, 2010
A. Schiff
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"La historia oficial" ("The Official Story", 1985) is the second in what I consider to be a trilogy of films dealing with political repression and its consequences in Argentina, and by extension universally. The film is about a secondary school history teacher, her "well connected" businessman husband and their 5 year old adopted daughter. At least the official story is that the daughter is adopted. The mother begins to question the adoption and unusual events surrounding how her husband unexpectedly brought their baby home 5 years earlier. She begins to search for records of the birth and the natural parents and can find none. The only thing that is clear is that her husband is lying and hiding something. Meanwhile, her husband's company is having some sort of political trouble. As the mother investigates more, she encounters an older woman who she believes is the natural grandmother of her daughter. The conflict between the mother, the possible natural grandmother, the husband, his family, his business, his lies and the changing political situation provides the dramatic movement to the unexpected conclusion.
The film was made in 1985, two years after the fall of the military dictatorship of the 1970s and early 80s. The Argentine audience would have been very familiar with the constant demonstrations of the "Madres de la Plaza de Mayo" (Mothers of the Plaza) who were demanding to know what happened to their children who disappeared during the military dictatorship. As we know today, many of their children were tortured and killed and the women who were pregnant were kept prisoners until the birth of the child. The babies were then adopted by political sympathizers and the mothers killed. This is a tough film dealing with an unbelievably tough subject; but it is well worth viewing for a mature audience. The other two films that deal with the history and consequences of political repression are "Camila" (1984) and "Vidas privadas"(Private Lives, 2001).
Memory, Justice and Truth: The Human Struggle July 14, 2009
purplehaloz
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
 Forgettable and slow June 16, 2009
One-Line Film Reviews (Easton, MD)
0 out of 7 found this review helpful
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
 Overcoming the banality of evil, corruption in adoption July 19, 2008
A. Wallace (California, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 29
|
|
|
