Most of the center sequences are stock examples of collision editing, all done
masterfully (they seem to get more and more pedestrian as they go on, but at the very
least, they are necessary to beef up the film's subconscious protrusion). A particular
highlight included the moving shots of cityscapes fused with fast-zoom stills of workers
as statistics are fired upon us over the soundtrack. Three methods at once become one
solid thing.

         Probably the best of the sequences between the first and next to last is the
montage of businessmen at what appears to be an auction which fuses into a cemetery
very clearly stated as "their cemetery" (referring to the rich landowners). This sequence,
known as 'The Oligarchy', does some amazing things in both of its parts. The
businessmen are shot in such a way - almost random and candid in their snobbish
physique - that they appear fully capable of carving up Argentina as if it were a turkey
and dispensing only table scraps to the working class AKA the poor AKA the other 98.5%
of the people in the country. The second half of ‘The Oligarchy’ is a remarkable mesh of
images appearing to ominously suggest the immorality of the aristocracy - and their
eventual peril. The images used are religious figureheads unable to be upended from the
context of the burial vaults they adorn. Of course, since this is the eventual peril of the
poor (and, to cease with beating around the bush, all humans) - it somehow links the
aristocracy to the poor in a very humbling, base way. The cemetery scenes combine
panning camera motions with now-clear-now-blurry focus tampering, some animated
bolts of lightning and a closing shot of a holy figure with his finger to his mouth in the
shush position. 'The Oligarchy' is the effective kind of damning and vindicating passage
the film highly benefits from. By strengthening the anti-wealth sentiment early on in the
game, Solonas and company can better make their points around the empirical
conclusion they have clearly set out to make.

         The next to last sequence (entitled : 'Cultural Violence') erupts into a
seizure-inducing set of cuts that, most literally, embody the filmmakers' claim that the
"projector [is] a gun that can shoot 24 frames per second". This quote certainly proves
their loyalty to the power of film as a medium the revolutionary tendencies they’ve
exploited it for. To be specific, personally, those tendencies translated to me as the
shocking statistic that 50% of the land is owned by 1.5% of the people and the workers
should be revolting on general principle. Certainly this isn't the only horrifying statistic or
worthwhile injustice the filmmakers are pushing to amend, but it seems intrinsic in
creating the force we can feel Solanas creating in ‘The Hour of the Furnaces'.

     This is a film that tries to raise the level of awareness. In locale and theme, it
reminded me a bit of John Sayles’ ‘Men With Guns’, a film that takes apart the state of
Latin America current to the film’s release using methods of storytelling (the importance
of stories among the people and the actual stories told in flashback) doing precisely the
same thing ‘The Hour of the Furnaces’ sets out to do. In one way, it is a film that wants
the people to rise up and take charge of their God-given rights. In another way, its meant
to be a cinematic turning point, a moment when all bets are off and a variety of
techniques get dumped into the melting pot to create an entirely new and radical thing. I
am reminded by the brilliant contrast Solanas creates in the film. Here we have some of
the fastest cutting ever put on celluloid. In the same film, there exists a two minute still
of the slain Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara - staring at our eyes through his lifeless
ones. ‘The Hour of the Furnaces’ is confident in its message and moves both fast and
slow to achieve it because even if the time is now and we have to get this done in as
quick and instructional a manner possible - there is always time to remember those who
died to pave this road. Solanas is content to present us with the single defining image of
freedom in South and Latin America. He knows damn well that if nothing else works,
Che Guevara, in life or death, will get the workers thinking.

Steeped in ordinary and blatant metaphors, an overused and conventional string score and
awash with a simplicity I’d not expected; on the whole ‘The Official Story’ appears to be
one of those “obvious” Academy Award choices that serves its time playing for
American theatergoers who, once a year, take off their shades and think for a change.
What turns out to be utterly baffling about this film was how it makes some of the most
ordinary scenes (the confession, the spousal confrontation, the wife/grandmother
empathy session) into blunt instruments of raw emotional verve. After the film ended and
I began the journey home, I kept hearing that wonderful sentiment “Crying doesn’t help”
(spoken by Gaby’s “grandmother”, Sara.). And its true. ‘The Official Story’ didn’t make
me feel the sobbing pangs like most of films I’d associate with the injustice/reunion
/tearjerker genre. This is a film that disquieted and fascinated me.

 As much as its a real stretch of a convenient setup that Alicia would be a teacher -
exposing history to students who are more interested in melodrama and literature - the
film does manage to conceive one really good moment out this aspect. Its not the obvious
scene where she hands a paper back to a student she had once dubbed a radical (before
her subsequent realization of her unknown affiliation with the guilty party). It is certainly
not the sequence where she enters the class to find the collapse of society via news
articles plastered to her chalkboard. No, the defining sequence, which may actually
contain more depth than writer/director Luis Puenzo realized, for me, is the moment
when Alicia takes Enrique, the literature teacher, downtown on a car ride. He tells her he
was fired from another University because “[He] was dangerous”.  This is an underlying
thematic element that is explored through Alicia’s panic stricken search for the truth
about her daughter. She immediately begins to look at everything in a different manner
than before when dangerous and safe meant one who could be kidnapped and one who
was able to grin and bear the oppression.

 In the wake of the dictatorship’s fall, her ignorance makes her safe with her
husband Roberto, who is, in fact, dangerous. As detached as their complex relationship
feels in this film, it is never played down that Roberto’s entire existence has created the
lie that is Alicia’s entire existence. In effect, the line about the literature teacher being
“dangerous” says more than it lets on - it reveals to us the black and white of a society
oppressed: dangerous is meant to stand for instability (either subversive or governmental)
while safe is a word reserved for those who have successfully fled the country. We get
the sense that there is no “safe” in Argentina when even the aristocratic wives of the
country are at risk simply by being in the dark (imagine if she had found out a year or two
before).

 The obvious counter-argument would be that, in the wake of the dictatorship’s
fall, Alicia will no longer be at risk. This is easily met with the theory that she is in
danger of being killed by her husband or even herself (I kept wondering to myself why
suicide was not discussed at all in the film - surely there is the chance that among all of
these mothers who have lost their children, there were a disturbing amount who took
their own lives).

 Finally, there are things the film does effectively that underscore historical
significance as well as create narrative competence. The opening credits are played over
images of many of the characters, who appear to have such ordinary faces. I couldn’t help
but realize that this push to depict these people as inherently commonplace begged the
question: How can normalcy even exist in a society only recently liberated of such
sinister practices as kidnapping, rape and torture? Puenzo makes this question more than
necessary; he suggests with how deftly he creates Alicia’s panic and obsession that
perhaps she is operating in exile from normalcy - if only for a short time.

 Even the harrowing drunken confession that explains in detail what happened to
those who were kidnapped treats the word “subversive” as a normal, almost undefined
word. Its not really all that important what it means, rather what it implies. (Incidentally,
even though I could have predicted days before seeing the film that a scene like this
would be included, I was flabbergasted by how wrenching and saddening the scene was.
The tone of this scene reminded me of a passage in the Ariel Dorfman play ‘Death and
the Maiden’ about not being able to see your torturer and being haunted by the feeling
that you could easily be forced, quite by chance, to recognize him by voice if you
bumped into him on the street.)

 ‘The Official Story’ is an uncompromising - if trite - document that has no trouble
stacking the obvious on top of the subtle, just nearly losing its edge. For every elementary
metaphor like the rough and tumble boys with toy guns bursting into Gaby’s room (meant
to mirror the forceful kidnappings during the regime), there is a wonderful nuance like
the reflections of many of the major characters in mirrors where, if only for a moment,
they are trapped by their own conscience. The stunning idea to be born out of being
cornered by your own moral senses is the fate we envision for Roberto after the
incredibly well-earned (by the film) moment when he realizes the magnitude of his
actions and the inevitable conclusion that is to come between he and his “daughter” and
he and his world.

        As a bleak toned anti-war film, ‘Veronico Cruz’ is haunting and tragic. The method at
which it reaches the representative title of being an anti-war film is often simplistic and,
as boiled down to its bare elements is kind of manipulative (namely, “please do get to
know the boy in the next ninety minutes but keep the tissues handy because we’re going
to kill him in the last five”). This isn’t a film that packs a punch as much as it is a slow,
internal document exploring government and patriotism and how in the heck they ever
got tossed onto the same playing field.

         Some techniques suited to the photographic composition help to remove it from
seeming familiar. Vast landscapes of soaring alpine regions and salt depositories are
contrasted with the closeness of interiors like the humble schoolhouse and the many
modest, poverty-stricken homes in Veronico’s village. The immensity of the world these
characters inhabit works in two very different ways.

         Such a boundless homeland set amidst such tiny, desolate structures suggests
intimate emotions amidst widespread ambition. Among the towering majesty of
mountain peaks and seemingly endless seas of white salt lies home, an abstract and
interior place - physically and emotionally. The determined Veronico, who takes to
education like most kids take to mischief, is as wide-open as the scenic view from his
front door. The Maestro’s compassionate, almost paternal upbringing of Veronico is like
the tiny village enshrouded by nature’s enormity: it is the necessary home Veronico will
need to fulfill the whole of his aspirations.

         Another of the film’s accomplishments while comparing the minute and the
massive settings is in showing just how insignificant the village appears in the entire
spectrum of Argentina’s changing politics. It was fascinating for me to imagine that
governmental rule could extend this far into the middle of nowhere and strike fear into
the hearts of its subjects (particularly the police office who seemed to have no trouble
immediately performing his tasks such as “dangerous book” removal and general
unpleasantness). It was also a testament that this police officer was willing to show a
different kind of patriotism, one that in Argentina’s shaky dominion, must’ve been a
constant one. The difference between the police officer and the rest of the villagers lies in
the idea of loyalty. While you get the sense that he enjoyed the power bestowed upon him
(even though he was living in a remote village where he would not necessarily be under
any sort of surveillance), you get a similar sense that everyone else in the village was
loyal to their country - but not necessarily it’s rulers. Another observation I had while
watching ‘Veronico Cruz’ was the blur of patriotism and loyalty into a hot-button
question that may not even have a definitive answer. The villagers are all good people
who love Argentina (they remain there, raising what little they can from the land and
cheering on they’re soccer team religiously). But they are - in more ways than their
location - detached.
 
         This is a beautifully shot film that doesn’t call attention to it’s cinematography
like many Hollywood films with similar visuals to maneuver. Besides being easy on the
eyes, ‘Veronico Cruz’ is often imagery-driven as well. The images give us disconnection.
Everyone is detached because all of their outside media is flimsy. When the radio breaks,
there is a sudden realization the world is out of reach (though its not shown, only eluded
to when the Maestro returns to the village to find a rambling old man, out of touch with
the news because his radio has broken). This is more of a retrospective image, one that
we chew on after we have viewed the film and are just beginning to deconstruct just how
many times the radio is seen or referenced. While we’re watching, we’ve images of
statues and frozen television frames while Veronico and the Maestro visit Buenos Aires
in search of Veronico’s father. The images are disjointed and removed; certainly not
nationalistic in the least. Bleak, the images are cut simultaneously between Veronico’s
visit to a government building (a scene that shows his patriotism) and the Maestro’s grim
confrontation with the police who deny him information regarding Veronico’s father (a
scene showing an antithesis to patriotism). This is a sequence of collision editing that
mixes up all the elemental arguments the film is making and emerges a totally different,
almost bewildered consciousness. Finally, the stage is set for the film’s ending, where the
Maestro will return to the village to find all but one of the people living there dead - and
learn of Veronico’s death in the Falkland Islands. (The film uses one of those stock,
almost insulting metaphoric strategies to show a ray of hope: a river runs, meant to show
that Veronico’s death is just part of the unending cycle of life)

         ‘Veronico Cruz’ is a small film, which acts in it’s favor. The characters aren’t
really fresh and neither is the father and son subtext - but it works. Before the dictatorial
rule is imposed, several sheep are found dead as if a bad omen. Every event in this film is
that easy to decipher. The bigger picture, an obtuse maturing of mind and body amidst a
backdrop that is as naturally tranquil as it is overwhelming, is the essence of the film and
as long as it is dictating, the dreamy panoramas of ‘Veronico Cruz’ are almost like far off
places in our imagination - ones that we can almost relate to.