La Teta Asustada Essay

1630 Words4 Pages

Examine the role of memory, history, trauma in La historia official and La teta asustada La historia oficial and la teta asustada present very different, and yet in many ways interlinked, examples of the roles played by memory, history and trauma in Argentina and Peru, respectively, while at the same time exploring other themes, such as stereotyping, exploitation and violence. La historia official is the story of a well-off, somewhat strict schoolteacher, who begins to suspect that her adopted daughter, Gaby, may be the child of desparecidos, of the type that regularly went missing during the years of the military dictatorship in which the film is set, and so decides to search for the truth behind ‘the official story’, a journey which changes her and threatens to pull her family …show more content…

This is a key moment in the film and is representative of the importance of narration by survivors of traumatic events in spreading the truth and ensuring that past injustices can be dealt with. At the same time however, it is also a clear example of the devastation this truth often causes, as we see the strain put on Alicia’s family by her continued search for the truth. At the same time Gaby, the centrepiece of the whole story, is never shown to have any clear recollection of the circumstances of her adoption, showing that trauma such as this can be forgotten even by the victims unless steps are taken by those who remember in order to preserve the collective

More about La Teta Asustada Essay

Open Document