Argentina 1985 review – rousingly-acted junta trial dramatisation

Ricardo Darin anchors this courtroom drama as the chief prosecutor bringing military leaders to justice for human rights abuse

There’s a fair bit of Hollywoodised emotion in this true-life courtroom drama, but it is managed with terrific flair and heartfelt commitment, and Ricardo Darin gives a wonderful performance in the lead: witty, wry, careworn but idealistic. He plays Julio Strassera, the Argentinian chief prosecutor in charge of the junta trial in 1985, the biggest event since Nuremberg, though there was no only-following-orders argument: they were ones giving the orders. The event was easily as important as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation commission 11 years later, although the emphasis was much more toughly on the “truth” part.

Nine top military brass were put in the dock for human rights abuses, and this film shows their haughty refusal to recognise the authority of a civilian court — including Leopoldo Galtieri, who had been in charge of the shameful and catastrophic invasion of the Falklands just four years before. His presence is not especially remarked upon, but Mitre lets the unspoken anger hover in the air: Argentina’s army was tough enough to torture women and children, but not tough enough to capture las islas Malvinas.

Peter Lanzani gives an attractive and sympathetic performance as Strassera’s deputy, Luis Moreno Ocampo, who had personal and family connections to Argentina’s ruling class and his mother, in particular, was a deeply conservative person, with an instinctive belief that the junta were innocent. Can Strassera and Ocampo somehow melt her heart? It’s almost too good to be true (although is evidently factual). And Darin is tremendous as Strassera, the grumpy old veteran who spies on his daughter to find out about her love life, and ends up rowing with Ocampo about the extent to which he had stayed silent, like all the rest of the governing class, for almost the entirety of his career.

The movie appears to have exercised a little licence in imagining the smart young team of legal researchers the Strassera assembled to roam the country looking for witnesses, their presence gives the film a lot of zip. It’s a forthright, muscular and potent movie.

• Argentina 1985 screened at the Venice film festival, and is released on 21 October on Prime Video.

Contributor

Peter Bradshaw

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
The Delinquents review – beguilingly surreal slow-motion Buenos Aires heist tale
If Pedro Almodóvar and Eric Rohmer teamed up to compose a meanderingly long crime caper it might look like this

Peter Bradshaw

18, May, 2023 @3:00 PM

Article image
Blue Jean review – watchable section 28 drama makes its point
Though some of the acting seems a bit made-for-TV, this 80s-set drama looking at homophobia during the Thatcher era has a forthright, soap-operatic force

Peter Bradshaw

03, Sep, 2022 @3:00 PM

Article image
The Damned Don’t Cry review – mournful portrait of colonial tension
Fyzal Boulifa explores the decisions forced on a poverty-stricken Moroccan family in this vivid and powerful drama

Peter Bradshaw

08, Sep, 2022 @2:45 PM

Article image
Love Life review – tangled and tragic human drama about chaotic life twists
Japanese director Kôji Fukada has crafted a richly painful and quietly comic human drama

Peter Bradshaw

07, Sep, 2022 @12:18 PM

Article image
Athena review – brutal violence and bravura action in the Paris banlieues
A staggeringly good opening set piece is the high point of Romain Gavras’s gritty thriller about police racism

Peter Bradshaw

02, Sep, 2022 @7:45 PM

Article image
Other People’s Children review – a heartfelt modern love triangle
This sweet, sad drama sees a teacher keen to be a mother bonding with her new boyfriend’s daughter, while dealing with the constant presence of his ex

Peter Bradshaw

04, Sep, 2022 @3:00 PM

Article image
L’Immensità review – desperation and secret yearning in 1970s Rome
Emanuele Crialese’s drama of family dysfunction, starring Penélope Cruz, offers moments of glorious escapist fantasy

Peter Bradshaw

10, Aug, 2023 @9:50 AM

Article image
Amanda review – comic crises in the life of an entitled twentysomething
A wealthy young woman, friendless and lost after studying abroad, sets about recovering an old friendship she thinks she once had

Peter Bradshaw

05, Sep, 2022 @7:00 PM

Article image
Happening review – sex and abortion on the new frontline in 60s France
Adapted from Annie Ernaux’s novel, this drama about a student agonising over an illegal termination plays out as a tense, gripping thriller

Xan Brooks

06, Sep, 2021 @3:21 PM

Article image
Cate Blanchett and Harry Styles to head to Venice for 2022 edition of film festival
Competition slots for jailed Iranian director Jafar Panahi, Martin McDonagh and Darren Aronofsky, while actors on show range from past winner Blanchett to Bill Nighy and Harry Styles

Andrew Pulver

26, Jul, 2022 @1:44 PM