Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Lee Eisenberg In 1976, a group of generals overthrew Argentina's government and began a campaign of terror against the population. Thousands of people got kidnapped by the government, never to be seen again. These people are known as the Disappeared. Luis Puenzo's Academy Award-winning movie "La historia oficial" ("The Official Story" in English) focuses on this. The protagonist, Alicia, is an affluent teacher who has never taken much interest in politics. But the discovery that her adopted daughter might be the daughter of a disappeared woman forces Alicia to rethink her previously neutral view of the government.The movie reminded me of John Sayles's "Men with Guns", which also focuses on a middle-class person in Latin America who starts to reconsider his views. Indeed, Puenzo noted that the plot reflects Argentina's efforts to find out the full truth of its history (one of the protagonist's students even proclaims that "history is written by assassins").Everyone should see it. I suspect that this sort of thing happened in every country that saw a military junta seize power. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo continue to congregate in the plaza to demand the truth about what happened to their children, while junta leader Jorge Videla got sentenced to jail in 2012 (he died the following year).

Jackson Booth-Millard I found this Argentinian (Spanish language) film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, the title did not suggest anything particular to me, but the Academy Award win, plot description and of course the recommendation was enough for me to try it. Basically the period known as the Dirty War has concluded, in Buenos Aires lives high school history professor and well-to-do housewife Alicia Marnet de Ibáñez (Norma Aleandro) who is happily married to government agent and successful lawyer husband Roberto (Héctor Alterio), and together they have adopted daughter Gaby (Analia Castro). It is on the daughter's fifth birthday that Alicia becomes curious to know about Gaby's real parents, but her husband avoids the topic and tells her to ignore it, he obviously knows the official story of how their daughter came to be available for adoption. Alicia's longtime friend Ana (Chunchuna Villafañe) returns from exile, she explains how she was tortured and being held for having lived with a man labelled as subversive, and she tells of seeing children taken from their parents who are put in jail, Alicia wonders if Gaby's parents went through this also. Alicia searches for birth and heritage records of Gaby at a hospital, there she learns of an organisation searching for missing children, a woman there, Sara (Chela Ruíz), claims to recognise Gaby as her granddaughter, and says that her parents disappeared. Like other members of the Argentine upper class Alicia is not aware of a lot of killing and suffering has gone on in the country, her views are challenged by fellow teacher Benitez (Patricio Contreras) and some of the students, she does report a student, but Benitez protects him, the two teachers do eventually become friendly as Alicia's research comes together. Roberto meanwhile is stressing at work, with many of his colleagues disappearing, he is also confronted by Ana who she blames partly for her arrest, and he comes to blows with his liberal father and brother, and he is furious when Alicia brings Sara home to meet him. That evening Alicia surprises Roberto, telling him that Gaby is not home and saying "how does it feel not knowing where your child is?", she does tell him Gaby is at his mother's house, he becomes enraged and assaults her, this stops when the phone rings, it is Gaby singing a nursery rhyme to Roberto, Alicia meanwhile gets her purse and leaves her key as she walks out, the final shot is Gaby continuing to sing, whilst with her adopted grandparents. I will be honest that occasionally whilst watching this film I found it a little tricky to keep up with, probably because of the subtitles reading, I dozed at one point and had to rewind back, thankfully I did get the concept, I can see why it rated well and won the awards it did, it is an interesting story based on parenthood, with a mix of trust issues, politics and human rights, a watchable drama film. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and it was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Good!

alex-nawoichik What is the official story of this film? I find the double meaning of this film's title to be quite ironic - that a history teacher does not even understand the history of her country, or political state that it is in. She also, does not understand where her adopted came from, or who her parents are. I appreciate the way that the lighting in this film highlights that irony. Her classroom and her house are both very dark, except for the splashes of sunshine that spill in from the windows. Also, it is overwhelmingly light outside when she is witnessing the picketing and rioting of the political groups of Argentina. Truly, the absence and presence of light plays an important role in The Official Story.

Birsen Göksu I am from another country and I know very well what happened in Argentina 30 years ago. My country as well suffered from a similar history, but, with one difference, you preferred remembering all this cruelty again and again and calling the responsibles for account, we, on the other hand, preferred just forgetting what happened.There are no "Saturday Mothers" or Generals being tried in my country. What is more upsetting is that my country is on the brink of loosing its memory."History is the memory of a society." Mr. Puenzo, thank you for refreshing our memories. I wish the same for my country.