Even though we may think we know a lot of facts about some country's turbulent political history, we are usually unaware of how many individual sad stories that history hides within. History books rarely tell the whole story :( And past will always come back to haunt us, whether we actually did something wrong, or just chose not to see the wrong that was being done.
This film will make you think about these things... and more.
This was a very emotional and moving film. One I liked a lot. I think the development of Alicia was superb (as well as her acting) Drama and history are blended wonderfully here, one of the best to do this actually. It pulls at the heart and does make you think about the hidden history in many other countries, not just Argentina, as well as the foundations of people. The ending scene was a great note to end on and well thought out by the director.
I liked the film very much and the thing I liked the most about La Historia Ofical is that it shows how people manage to walk blindly through life and how they open their eyes only if they are directly affected by it. Problems of others and their misery tend to be ignored if awareness of them makes peoples lives less comfortable and satisfying.
I haven't watched many westerns so can't really compared The Wild Bunch to others but I thought it was good. I liked that the director showed the ''bad guys'' to be more than just that, they had feelings and were vulnerable too. For nothing is black and white.
La historia oficial: Based on the premise alone this film might have seemed like a fairly conventional melodrama, but it quite skilfully avoided becoming that and was instead a moving lesson in recent Argentine history as told through the story of one particular family, so yes at times the specific characters serve as allegory for the different archetypes of Argentine society (naive bourgeois, opportunist collaborator, defeated communists, the worldly literature teacher who is a cynic but still tries to keep fighting, the grieving families of the missing...), and yet I did feel all characters were still more or less believable enough and even the husband who despite being an unpleasant character (and possibly even a torturer as the film ambiguously hints at in the end with his systematic use of violence, maybe he was even involved in the torture of the girl's parents?) was still given a fully fleshed-out characterisation as a man full of repressed guilt --- his wife although less directly guilty, feels outrage when she realises the society she lives in and unlike her husband does desire to face her guilt.
The Wild Bunch: I feel like there's a lot I could say about this film, but let me just briefly try to say why I feel it is better than the classic John Ford & co westerns, and that is because it has one layer more of self-awareness and of complexity than Ford et al.... while Ford and Peckinpah both have a romanticised view of the wild west, the former's heroes are glorified heroes, but the latter's characters are not merely glorified antiheroes but are shown to be a dying breed living in a harsh pitiless world where violence is inevitable and inbred, and they themselves seem to know it, all of these things being the trademark of Peckinpah's dark worldview which both hates violence and yet sees it as something within all of us.
La Historia Oficial - great film!
ReplyDeleteEven though we may think we know a lot of facts about some country's turbulent political history, we are usually unaware of how many individual sad stories that history hides within. History books rarely tell the whole story :(
And past will always come back to haunt us, whether we actually did something wrong, or just chose not to see the wrong that was being done.
This film will make you think about these things... and more.
This was a very emotional and moving film. One I liked a lot. I think the development of Alicia was superb (as well as her acting) Drama and history are blended wonderfully here, one of the best to do this actually. It pulls at the heart and does make you think about the hidden history in many other countries, not just Argentina, as well as the foundations of people. The ending scene was a great note to end on and well thought out by the director.
ReplyDeleteI liked the film very much and the thing I liked the most about La Historia Ofical is that it shows how people manage to walk blindly through life and how they open their eyes only if they are directly affected by it. Problems of others and their misery tend to be ignored if awareness of them makes peoples lives less comfortable and satisfying.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it makes you think!
I haven't watched many westerns so can't really compared The Wild Bunch to others but I thought it was good. I liked that the director showed the ''bad guys'' to be more than just that, they had feelings and were vulnerable too. For nothing is black and white.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure both films were lovely :)
ReplyDelete:facepalm:
ReplyDeleteLa historia oficial:
ReplyDeleteBased on the premise alone this film might have seemed like a fairly conventional melodrama, but it quite skilfully avoided becoming that and was instead a moving lesson in recent Argentine history as told through the story of one particular family, so yes at times the specific characters serve as allegory for the different archetypes of Argentine society (naive bourgeois, opportunist collaborator, defeated communists, the worldly literature teacher who is a cynic but still tries to keep fighting, the grieving families of the missing...), and yet I did feel all characters were still more or less believable enough and even the husband who despite being an unpleasant character (and possibly even a torturer as the film ambiguously hints at in the end with his systematic use of violence, maybe he was even involved in the torture of the girl's parents?) was still given a fully fleshed-out characterisation as a man full of repressed guilt --- his wife although less directly guilty, feels outrage when she realises the society she lives in and unlike her husband does desire to face her guilt.
The Wild Bunch:
I feel like there's a lot I could say about this film, but let me just briefly try to say why I feel it is better than the classic John Ford & co westerns, and that is because it has one layer more of self-awareness and of complexity than Ford et al.... while Ford and Peckinpah both have a romanticised view of the wild west, the former's heroes are glorified heroes, but the latter's characters are not merely glorified antiheroes but are shown to be a dying breed living in a harsh pitiless world where violence is inevitable and inbred, and they themselves seem to know it, all of these things being the trademark of Peckinpah's dark worldview which both hates violence and yet sees it as something within all of us.
The Wild Bunch
ReplyDeleteI prefer my westerns the way God intended them to be less smart and more Hollywood like :bleh:
La Historia Official
ReplyDelete"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it." George W Bush
The Wile Bunch
Men of principle or those who are bound by a series of codes are coloured in gray too, like the rest of us.