(2005; Captive, Spanish) During the "Dirty War" of the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina from 1976-1983, an estimated 30,000 citizens disappeared into clandestine prisons, never to be seen again. Some knew; others didn't want to know about it.

"Central Intelligence Agency documents released in 2002 show that Argentina's brutal policies were known and tolerated by the United States State Department, led by Henry Kissinger under Gerald Ford's presidency, and that the Argentine military knew the U.S. supported the repression," according to Wikipedia, corroborating director/writer Gaston Biraben's assertion in his dramatic film based on this history.

In her classroom on the outskirts of Buenos Aires in 1994, following her 15th birthday and an appendectomy, Cristina Quadri (Bárbara Lombardo) hears an outburst by classmate Angélica (Mercedes Funes), accusing the government of protecting "bastard politicians" from their involvement in the past's tyranny, when the civics teacher lectures about presidential amnesty.

Shortly afterward Cristina is called to the office of the mother superior in her all-female Catholic school where she's introduced to an assistant district attorney and Prof Lucretia (Marcela Ferradás), a psychologist, who escort her, without informing her parents - Pablo (Osvaldo Santoro), a retired captain in the federal police, and Adela Quadri (Silvia Baylé) - to the courthouse.

In the chambers of Federal Judge Dr Miguel Barrenechea (Hugo Arana), who says he is "completely certain," Cristina hears that her actual parents, Leticia Dominich and Agustin Lombardi, both architects, were kidnapped by security forces in 1978, that she was a victim of appropriation, and that her legal name is Sofia Lombardi.

When Elisa Dominich (Susana Campos), Leticia's mother, enters the room to greet Sofia as her granddaughter, Cristina flees. At the train station where her father has come to take her home, Cristina and Pablo are detained by federal police. Denied further contact with her Quadri parents, presented with conclusive blood tests and other evidence, Cristina accompanies Elisa home where she's shown photos of her natural parents and told of their life. "This can't be!" cries out the traumatically confused teenager.

Given an opportunity to visit briefly with the Quadris and collect her belongings, Cristina (saying of the judge and Elisa, "They're making me crazy"), after asking them to submit to a blood test for proof of paternity, finally learns from Pablo and Adela of their inability to have their own child, adopting her ("The child we couldn't have") as an infant from a couple who abandoned her.

In a session with Prof Lucrecia, who explains that the couple who raised her were not informed of the investigation because there was no guarantee they'd cooperate, Cristina asks: "Who should I believe?"

Among her new relations for a celebration of her return to them, Cristina, shown more pictures of her real parents by her aunt Ana (Roxana Berco), is told that she was born in either June or July 1978, nearly a year earlier than she'd been led to believe. At school in a volleyball game Cristina (still refusing to accept her new identity) again makes acquaintance with Angélica to whom she confides that she's been told that her parents were among the disappeared.

Unable to extract specifics about her birth and the circumstances of her parents' disappearance from Ana and Nana, who say they have to protect those who provided information, Cristina goes to Angélica, whose mother survived imprisonment in a clandestine prison in the center of Buenos Aires, who suggests that they do their own research into what actually happened.

Agustin was held in "The Cave" near Olmo Penitentiary where Leticia gave birth on the day the Argentines won the World Cup from Holland; there were witnesses, in particular one named Martha, a nurse. With her newfound intelligence, Sofia returns to the Quadris to confront them and their deception.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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