Who We Are: Recollecting Memories
Guillermina Zabala Suarez / UT San Antonio

Argentine cinema, among many characteristics, has a distinctive one: writing about, reflecting on, and remembering the dark years of the mid-70s military dictatorship. Besides the Oscar-nominated Argentina, 1985 (2022) or the Oscar-winning The Official Story (1985), hundreds of film productions explore that narrative thread that denounces—through various voices and formats—the horrors of that chapter in the country’s history.

In the early 2000s, a new body of work arose with an innovative approach. Led by a group of young filmmakers whose parents had been kidnapped and disappeared during the Dirty War (1976-1983), these productions—mostly documentaries—marked a new era of Argentine cinema. Influenced by the direct style of the cine político—also called “militant cinema” – from Fernando “Pino” Solanas and Octavio Getino, these filmmakers absorbed their social justice commitment but moved away from political-intervention style and somewhat propagandistic agenda to dive into a more introspective insight, embarking in a journey of recollecting memories.

There are three films that are part of this journey, where the poetic discourse prevails over the journalistic and expository mode. These films also have another element in common: the incorporation of “memory” as a significant narrative technique and visual resource.

Albertina Carri’s Los Rubios (2003)

María Inés Roqué’s Papá Iván (2004)

Nicolas Prividera’s M (2007)

Considered one of the first films to represent this Nuevo Cine Argentino, Carri’s Los Rubios (The Blonds) explores the timelessness of memories and the verisimilitude of events through the intersection of fiction and non-fiction. Carri, who lost her parents when she was three years old, utilizes a hybrid narrative by mixing traditional elements of recollecting memories—photos, Super 8mm films, heirlooms—with a semi-fictional mise-en-scene in which Carri casts an actress to play herself while filming the story as a behind-the-scenes documentary.

In one of the scenes, the actress who plays Carri reviews VHS video interviews on a vintage-looking TV. The interviewees, who are relatives and/or friends of Carri’s parents, describe her parents in detail. Carri’s character takes notes of the interviewees and writes thoughts:

“Exponer a la memoria en su propio mecanismo. Al omitir, recuerda.” (To expose memory in its own mechanism. By omitting, it remembers.)

Later in the documentary, we see Carri setting up the camera for the next scene in which she interviews the actress who plays Carri. The actress talks about the experience they had when filming around the neighborhood where Carri’s parents lived before they were captured. Through these sequences, Carri explores the re-contextualization of the interview and how, by retelling a story in a different context – she’s not the one telling it but the actress playing herself –, allows her to challenge the veracity of video testimonials.

Los Rubios marked a new narrative approach when telling the story of the desaparecidos. In this case, it’s a personal chronicle of events—her parents were kidnapped and disappeared because of their political beliefs during the authoritarian regime—but Carri builds a fictionalized layer in order to distance herself from the facts that are unfolding through remembrance.

The use of archival material as a resource to reconstruct memories can also be seen in Papá Iván by María Inés Roqué, who went into exile in Mexico with her grandmother and brother Iván in 1977. Through the production of Papá Iván, Roqué attempts to understand who her father, Julio Iván Roqué, also known as “Lino,” truly was. Her father, who died in 1977, had been a highly recognized figure before and during the military dictatorship. He was a founder of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) organization in Córdoba and later joined the leadership of the guerrilla group Montoneros. The personal quest and artistic exploration that Roqué undertakes in Papá Iván is part of this Nuevo Cine Argentino’s trend observed in other filmmakers of her generation (such as Albertina Carri and Nicolás Prividera) and/or from the same period, characterized by an intimate and personal perspective while maintaining an investigative and neutral approach.

It is within this context that Roqué’s work is situated, even though her training and artistic endeavors were mostly carried out in Mexico. In fact, her process adds a new dimension to the concept of memory: space. The process of remembering while being in the same location where events took place is very different from the process of remembering from thousands of kilometers away. There is a sense of displacement, generally felt by those who emigrate and, in this case, by those living in exile. The impossibility of revisiting familiar places—childhood paths, familiar streets, schoolyards, plazas, etc.—and having to rely solely on a letter and a few photographs, compels Roqué to create a hybrid structure that takes shape over time.

The documentary begins with Roqué’s voiceover reading her father’s letter: “August 26, 1972. To my children Iván and María Inés. I am writing this letter because I fear I may never be able to explain to you what happened to me.” As we hear the content of the letter, a montage of black-and-white photos is shown, featuring María Inés, Iván, and their father, Julio.  Less than a minute into the film, Roqué reveals the letter in an overhead shot showing one of the typewritten pages on translucent paper, held by, presumably, María Inés. The voiceover then transforms into a personal narration. We now hear the filmmaker herself explaining when her father died—May 29, 1977—and describing the image of a heroic father that the passage of time and the comments of loved ones have imprinted on her.

“Yo preferiría tener un padre vivo que un héroe muerto” (I would rather have a living father than a dead hero.) – Roque ‘s voiceover.

The film features a hybrid style, combining a mode of presentation through specific data and interviews with poetic, reflective, and participatory elements (we don’t see Roqué, but we hear her voice during the conversations and interviews). Her presence transforms her into another character, one who is visually present through archival material, especially photographs.

Similar to Roqué and Carri, Prividera embarks on a cinematic journey of identity in his feature film M, in which he uses memory as a resource—through photographic archives, testimonies from his mother’s family and colleagues, and historical documents. The analysis of M serves as a reference point for elucidating the complex relationship between the object—both tangible and intangible—and memory.

Inspired by—and building upon the work of his predecessors who are part of this cinematic tradition—Prividera develops a quest for a new cinematic narrative. This quest is twofold: on the one hand, it’s a search for his own identity through the discovery of what truly happened to his mother and, on the other, it’s a search for a previously unseen documentary language—one with a poetic and experimental nuance.

In some ways, the opening scene of M reflects the distinctive style that Prividera will develop throughout the rest of his narrative. The camera, positioned behind a wired fence, observes the ocean waves from a distance, hinting at the film’s overall approach, which delves into a detached observation of past events. An extreme close-up of the waves is slowly superimposed onto a television screen displaying static. We begin to hear voices as the camera pulls back, revealing the entire television screen. The voices are numerous and speak about someone who has disappeared—presumably murdered. A living room, hallway, doorways, and another room resembling an office with photographs and a computer come into view. This camera movement through the spaces of a house ends on a green LEGO brick with the letter “M,” that represents the figure of the mother, whose name also starts with the letter M (Marta Sierra).

The film presents several journeys through memories: first, through chronological time, as Prividera attempts to investigate his mother’s actions before her kidnapping; second, through historical time, in relation to what was happening in the country at that moment; and finally, an inner journey in which he—accompanied by his brother Guido—reflects on his mother’s commitment to social justice. Prividera constructs each of these journeys through a collection of images—visual and auditory—which, when viewed in the context of the film, form a new poetic language.

This movement, labeled by many film historians as the Nuevo Cine Argentino, continues through this day and includes several other productions that follow a similar exploration: how can filmmakers re-discover and re-interpret personal and archived memories in order to bring meaningful answers to their present existential queries? Other films include: Diego Ercolano’s La memoria que habitamos, Andres Habegger’s (H) Historias Cotidianas, and Nicolás Prividera’s Adiós a la Memoria, among others.

Carri, Prividera and Roqué’s exploration of the theme of victims and survivors of the dictatorship, and their approach with a new, perhaps more subtle and lyrical perspective, set a tone for a movement of filmmakers, artists, writers, and activists. They reflect on—and do not forget—the humanistic ideals their parents, grandparents, and other relatives held in spite of the oppression. The saying “Nunca Más” (Never Again) has become a powerful statement that persisted over the years thanks to these filmmakers, alongside the unflinching fight of human rights activists and a good portion of the Argentine population. The act of remembering is reflected as an act of resistance. When reflected in a story, in a film, in a documentary, the impact persists through times, creating social awareness to future generations.

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Image Credits:

1. Still from The Blonds (2003) Women Make Movies. Dr.: Albertina Carri
2. Image of María Inés Roqué behind the camera. La Nación article, 2004.
3. Still from Prividera’s M (2007) 791 Cine. Dir.: Nicolás Prividera
4. Still from The Blonds (2003) Women Make Movies. Dir.: Albertina Carri          
5. Los Rubios (The Blonds) poster
6. Still from Roqué’s Papá Iván (2004) Zafra Difusión SA. Dir.: María Inés Roqué
7. Papá Iván poster
8. Still from Prividera’s M (2007) 791 Cine. Dir.: Nicolás Prividera                                                        
9. M poster