Imagining Argentina: Grade D

D
Imagining Argentina
Antonio Banderas, Emma Thompson

Banderas directs a children’s theater in Buenos Aires during the mid 1970’s during one of South America’s “dirty wars” in which thousands of ordinary people were “disappeared” by the dictatorial government. His wife is disappeared and he tries against hope to find her. The movie is a plodding docudrama of a dirty war, but then it takes a surprising and improbable twist and Banderas becomes psychic, able to locate or at least tell people the status of their missing loved ones. This was probably done to keep boredom at bay. It is an important political commentary, about events that few Americans know anything about, so for getting the message out, it gets high marks. But as a movie, it stinks. Banderas mutters inanities stone-faced while Emma Thompson acts circles around him. But since she is the one that gets disappeared, early in the movie, we don’t see much of her. There are no other redeeming qualities.