Oscars 2023: Why Argentina, 1985 could be among frontrunners for Best Foreign Film

Film: Argentina, 1985

Language: Spanish

Cast: Ricardo Darin, Peter Lanzani, Alejandra Flechner, Claudio Da Passano, Santiago Armas Estevarena, Gina Mastronicola

Directed by: Santiago Mitre

Argentina, 1985 maintains a surprisingly mellow tone for a film that draws focus on one of the most brutal chapters in the history of the nation. The levity in storytelling lets writer-director Santiago Mitre explore a universal connect beyond homeland Argentina, which in turn leaves scope for layered comment. For, apart from serving as a diary of atrocities unleashed by a fascist regime, the Spanish language film is a wake-up call against fascism itself. Mitre’s film, an Oscar frontrunner after its Golden Globe win as Best Foreign Film, also scores as one of the most accomplished courtroom dramas in recent times.

The plot centres on Julio Strassera, chief prosecutor of Argentina, assigned with helming the 1985 trial against the nation’s nine top-ranked military officers who were charged with human rights abuse during the civil-military dictatorship between the mid-seventies and 1983. It was an era when any suspected political dissidents or guerrilla fighter could be picked up by the military junta for interrogation in the name of national security.

Soon, the military engaged in rampant mayhem in order to instil widespread psychosis that would let them maintain control over society. Secret detention centres mushroomed to illegally detain victims who were often kidnapped in broad daylight, and subjected to torture, rape and murder in the name of interrogation. As Strassera puts it in the perspective of Argentinian history at one point, it was the “greatest act of genocide witnessed in the history of our young country”.

The film, though, is not about portraying those violent years of Argentina’s dictatorship era. It is an aftermath saga, aiming to narrate what happened next, which is where the challenge in storytelling lay. Mitre and co-writer Mariano Llinas focus on the less dramatic post-military op phase. Democracy is restored and the case against the military top brass is transferred to a civil court. Strassera is initially reluctant but, being a public prosecutor, has no choice but to fight the case.

The reality that awaits him is fraught with tragi-comic irony, and realised with wry scriptwriting and directorial execution. Building a team that would let Strassera carry out an impartial probe against the high and mighty of the military forces turns out a herculean task in the fledgling democracy. The long tenure of military rule means almost everyone capable of the job is either dead or has forged some sort of an association with the fascist leaders over the years in order to survive. The few who are worth consideration are too old to serve. “There’s no one!” Strassera’s exasperated assertion is complemented by the only option he has at hand: He is forced to hire a team of raw and inexperienced youngsters for the job.

The sardonic quality of writing conveys the sheer absurdity Strassera must have felt taking on the nation’s military might, assisted by a bunch of rookies — or “Strassera’s Kids” as a magazine cover dubs them. Individual incidents, like the one where he formally meets his greenhorn deputy prosecutor for the first time only in court on day one of the trial, are executed with restrained sarcasm, to highlight the chaos defining the system. The touch of irreverence acquires a Hollywoodish dash, too, at times. When Strassera is bogged down by the telephonic threats his family receive after he takes up the case, his tweenager son’s reaction is nonchalant. “If they could really harm, they wouldn’t waste time calling up,” the boy shrugs.

Yet there is the lingering sense of discomfort and an emotional heft to prop the narrative, as the barbarism that forms the film’s background story looms large with understated menace all through. Witnesses backtrack from testifying saying, “one of the men who tortured me now works at the governor’s office” or “the doctor who kept checking if I could take more torture is now the chief of medicines at the hospital”. As the nine military supremos openly scoff at the legitimacy of a civilian trial, you understand Strassera’s tension over whether the case would ever reach a fair conclusion.

For Strassera, the challenge lay in proving the continued tortures were part of a systematic plan to terrify the masses. The police or the military would, naturally, not help much with evidence and fascists were still all around. The build-up in the early portions, as his team goes about collecting evidence, is rendered with documentary precision before the courtroom drama sets in.

Mitre’s approach from most courtroom dramas is different in the sense he avoids playing to the gallery with rhetoric or letting his hero Strassera take centrestage with heroic flamboyance. Rather, courtroom footage in the film is mostly about letting the victims and witnesses speak. Incidents of torture, though never shown on screen, leave an impact as victims graphically recall the horrors before the judges. As Strassera says in his closing address: “This trial makes us responsible for establishing peace based not on oblivion but on memory, not on violence but on justice.” In contrast, Mitre hardly allocates dialogues to the accused inside the courthouse, almost as if to emphasise the villains of his piece have no plausible reason to defend their actions.

A runtime of 140 minutes could obviously never have been adequate for a film recounting a slice of history as immense as Argentina’s trial of the juntas. Mitre trains focus on the trial, in the process choosing to allot only sketchy footage to the investigation procedure by Strassera’s Kids. He would need bigger storytelling space — a full-length series perhaps — to get into detailed portrayal of every aspect concerning the events at hand.

Veteran actor Ricardo Darin brings Strassera alive with assurance, as an unassuming government figure thrust with a sudden responsibility and also as an over-concerned family man who doesn’t hesitate to spy on who his daughter is dating. Darin’s Strassera is driven by ideology but is pragmatic enough to accept what life throws at him with a sense of humour. “Men like me don’t make history,” he tells a friend shortly before the start of the trial, with characteristic cynicism. History would prove him wrong, of course.

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR.

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