(2006; Cronica de una Fuga, Spanish) In November 1977, with the military regime's taking control of the Argentine government, suspected rebels were rounded up, tortured, and killed. Following seven years of ruthless rule, the military dictatorship fell; in 1985 during the trials of criminal acts against civilians, victims testified against the authorities. Director Israel Adrián Caetano's gripping but gruesome film of the fate of four detainees is based on Claudio Tamburrini's book, La Fuga de la Mansíon Seré, with collaboration from Guillermo Fernández.

Among those taken into custody was Claudio (Rodrigo de la Serna), the goalie for the Almagro soccer club, kidnapped (on the confession of Tano) in Buenos Aires after his mother was beaten and his sister threatened. "The longer you hold out," he's told, "the worse it will be."

Accused of being a terrorist operating a mimeograph machine, his interrogators demand: "Who are your contacts?" He has no contacts; he's not a political person let along a guerrilla. Blindfolded with hands bound, inside an old mansion called Atila with other prisoners, he shares a room with Marito, a detainee who believes they are suffering "trials by the Lord to make us stronger."

Repeatedly dunked in water and questioned about "the meeting, an attack," Claudio has nothing and no one to divulge to his interrogators. Eventually after Christmas - Marito appears to be given his freedom - Claudio is moved to another room with Tano and four other men. Tano admits ("I had no choice") to Claudio, who hardly knows him, that he falsely gave the goalie's name to buy time for his comrades to get away. The others - Jorge, Guillermo (Nazareno Casero), Gallego (Lantaro Delgado), and Vasco (Matias Marmorato) - are also revolutionaries.

On the 118th day of Claudio's incarceration, Guillermo is taken to another location where a judge gives him three days to provide useful information or die. At the same time, Jorge is removed (the others are told) to an actual prison while the remaining four are stripped naked and shorn, cuffed, and tied down to their cots. "The more you mistreat them," one of the captors says to the chief interrogator, "the less they talk."

On March 24th, 1978, stark naked but desperate because for Guillermo at least it's now or never, they act, taking advantage of the methodical routines of the guards, teamwork, a loose screw, and a thunderstorm.

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

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