Summary Of Official Story By Luis Puenzo

Luis Puenzo's Official Story calls attention to one of Argentina's most infamous campaigns waged during President Jorge Rafael Videla's rule. Argentina transitioned to a dictatorship in 1983 following a coup d'état that led to the deposition of previous President Isabel Martinez de Peron. To maintain control over Argentina, Videla launched several legislations that "closed the National Congress, imposed censorship, banned trade unions, and brought state and municipal government under military control" (Britannica). People suspected of being dissidents or subversives were jailed and persecuted in unknown and covert concentration camps. These people, known as "los desparecidos" or "the disappeared", would be tortured through cruel methods, ranging

from "rape, burning, being attacked by specially trained dogs, sleep deprivation, being forced to watch other people being tortured, exposure to extreme temperatures and noises, and simulated executions." (Garcia 7). The goal of the torture sessions was to extract as much as information from the person's subversive operations, compel them to collaborate with the government in bringing down opposition, and make them believe they were fighting a losing cause. Torture techniques were effective - the Videla's junta gathered almost "95% [of their information] because of direct or indirect [torture]" (Hodges 1991). During the seven-year campaign, almost 30,000 people were either missing or killed (Global Security).
As the Videla junta slowly lost power, the dissemination of the atrocities the government had committed helped transition Argentina from a dictatorship to a democracy. In the early 1980s, it became evident to both Argentinean citizens and the rest of the world that government was responsible for all vanishings happening. The Galtieri administration, succeeding Videla, launched an attack on the Falkland Islands in a desperate effort to conceal evidence of the crimes committed during the Dirty War (Britannica). However, the 1983 election of Raul Alfosin of the Radical Civic Union restored democracy back to the nation and he immediately reversed legislations granting amnesty to those accused of crimes and human rights during the Dirty War. To shed global attention to the issue, he immediately set to prosecute the previous military government, imprisoning former presidents Videla, Viola, and Galtieri.
Luis Puenzo's Official Story mirrors the struggles middle class Argentinean families faced during the Dirty War.

Set in 1983 Buenos Aires during a time of decreasing military government, the Official Story recants the story of a wealthy teacher's quest to understand the circumstances of her daughter's adoption. A history teacher, Alicia is a law-abiding citizen who believes solely what is written in the historical textbooks. However, a life-changing encounter with her estranged friend Ana makes Alicia want to investigate the circumstance of her daughter Gaby's adoption. According to the Association for Diplomatic Studied and Training, "arrested pregnant women would be held in prison until the baby was born. Then they might disappear, and the baby would be taken by a military family or someone associated with the intelligence service who wished to adopt a baby." Given that Alicia could not conceive children, she realized that perhaps Gaby may be the daughter of a desparecido, political prisoner, and hopes to find Gaby's biological family. Her investigation eventually leads her to Gaby's biological grandmother and a disturbing truth about her husband Roberto, who is revealed to be a government official under the corrupt Videla

junta.
Just as United States President Garfield once said, "The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable", Alicia's first interaction with Ana was a cornerstone in her investigation of "los desparecidos".

Prior to speaking with Ana, Alicia had been a firm believer of what was written in historical textbooks and never considered unofficial history as a legitimate source. When discussing the topic of Argentine patriot Mariano Moreno in class, her student Costa emphatically points out that not all written history is true. Alicia believed that prominent politician Moreno had died of natural reasons and been pushed overboard, not Costa's rendition that he had been poisoned for being an expatriate. Hence, hearing Ana's story of torture represented an evolution of her personal views on the role of history in modern society. The deeper she went into her journey to find Gaby's biological family and investigate "los desparecidos", the more cynically she viewed history. In fact, at the end of the movie, Alicia gives Costa an A- on his paper for creativity, despite lacking the needed historical references. The truth about Gaby's adoption not only completely changed Alicia's philosophy but also affected her physical and mental composure. Alicia, once considered a part of the bourgeois, picked up smoking as a way to cope with her stress. Her hair quickly grayed and her appearance mattered less and less to her. Instead of hanging out with her girlfriends, she began

meeting out with Benitez, a colleague she once used to hate. It seems as if Alicia's temperament completely changed once Ana visited her.
The film not only describes how bystanders were affected by the Dirty War, but also those who had family who had vanished. One of the most important scenes in the movie is when Alicia sees people protesting around Buenos Aires, carrying signs with pictures of their missing loved ones. The families of the missing and imprisoned would protest the government by asking for information on their "los desparecidos" and would be found saying, "They took them alive. We want them back alive". Luis Puenzo draws inspiration from a real-life parallel in Argentina and incorporates it into the movie to depict the trauma that these families felt. The pain these families felt was incomprehensible - as Gaby's biological grandmother best stated, "Crying doesn't help... I've tried it." Puenzo loosely bases this scene on Las Madres de Mayo, a group of women who courageously demonstrated ever Thursday in the large Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to challenge the government's brutal regime. These women would use a simple and effective chant, "We want our children and we want them to tell us where they are"(Tolerance). These women, similar to Gaby's biological grandmother, would identify themselves by wearing a white headscarf, representing a diaper for the children they had lost. Although they were called crazy woman or "las locas", these women were the brave ones who spoke out during the oppressive regime. Such a strong character can also be seen from the movie when Gaby's presumed grandmother went into Alicia's house and managed to remain calm, despite being treated poorly by Roberto. Although most people were devastated by the events of the Dirty War, an eclectic group of women showed the courage and foresight truly underscores the atrocities of the government.
However, those most affected by the Argentinean dictatorship were innocent civilians such as Ana. Ana, one of Alicia's closest friends, was sent to a political concentration camp after her husband Pedro was found to be a subversive. Instead of reporting his actions, she opted to remain quiet and was proud of her husband, even stating later to Roberto "If I could influence Alicia she would never marry you. [Pedro] was the complete opposite of you." When Ana tells Alicia her story of the concentration camp, Alicia is completely taken by shock. Initially thinking Ana would tell Alicia an interesting and fun story, Ana explains the torture she faced for 36 days. As Ana says in the movie, "There was a Gardel poster on the door. They ripped it to shreds. They stormed in, threw a sweater on my head and destroyed everything. They took me in a car with their feet on me. I was hit with a rifle bit. I awoke naked on a table. They began torturing me. At some point, someone examined me with a stethoscope. They shoved my head into a pail of water. 7 years later, I still feel like I am drowning... The only reason I was not raped was because one officer, whose face I saw, said 'I'm going to keep you for myself.' His words still haunt me today." Ana constantly lives in a perpetual state of fear, not knowing what will happen to her. At a dinner, someone asked her if she would be back for good now and Ana curtly replies, "I do not know." Even the slightest memory of her time at the concentration is enough to trigger her posttraumatic stress disorder.
Luis Puenzo also seeks to emphasize that those affected by the Dirty War extended beyond just families of the vanished and people taken to political concentration camp; even the common man far away from the situation was affected by the events. Common people such as Robert's brother and father were also significantly affected by the transition from democracy to dictatorship under the Videla dictatorship. When Robert goes back to visit his family, he is consistently taunted by his father who says, "being rich isn't a bad thing, as long as you acquired it through the proper means." Roberto's father argues that the entire country has fallen except thieves and is disappointed his eldest son "struck it rich" by joining their cohort. Roberto's brother, once a prominent factory owner, argues that although Roberto might be a winner, it is people like him who will be paying for the money the government illegally swiped from the people. After losing his factory and forced to live with his parents due to poor economic conditions, Roberto's brother envisions a future in which his kids will forever be stuck in a perpetual state of poverty, repaying the corrupt government as a means for survival.
Although the movie ends tragically, there are many hopeful signs of Argentina shifting fundamentally towards a democracy. Alicia initially has an antediluvian view on history, stating, "No peoples can survive without memory. History is the memory of the peoples." She believes history as it is written in official accounts. However, one of the biggest signs of hope is Alicia's students' refusal to accept "official history" and question the legitimacy of it. As Costa points out, "History is written by assassins." He motivates his entire class to question the textbook and read more about the circumstances surrounding Moreno's death. This fundamental attitude towards questioning everything and remaining cynical is the attitude that the Argentinean people needed to rise against the Videla junta. Furthermore, Ana's release from the political concentration camp also represents a significant victory. Most of the times, "many of the disappeared were believed to have been abducted by agents of the Argentine government during these years, the disappeared were often tortured and killed before their bodies were disposed of in rural areas or unmarked graves"(ADST). In fact, according to Johns Hopkins University, "forensic reports uncovered an estimated four hundred unidentified bodies...the opening of mass graves continued reluctantly, but the country become truly mesmerized by the exhumations" (Johns Hopkins University). The fact that Ana was released back into society and still had the audacity to share her story is seen can be seen as a right step in the direction for democracy.
The Dirty War remains one of Argentina's darkest historical spots. Although the country has taken the rights steps to honor those who passed away, Professor Robben at Johns Hopkins University recognizes that "Argentina's social memories are conflicting remembrances, conflicting re-constructions of narrative wholes out of fragmentary traumatic memories because of forgetting, insufficient encoding, incomprehensibility, and unknowability within...The recurrent recollection of partial traumatic experiences will therefore not unify discourse, but enhance the antagonism within Argentina's traumatized society." Although history may seek to quantify the number of deaths and qualitatively describe the incidences, an unofficial history will always exist - it is impossible to bridge the gap between official and unofficial history. The world may never truly understand the extent to which many Argentinean people suffered during the Dirty War. As President Abraham Lincoln once said, "Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with them of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged."