Clandestine Childhood

A Potent Argentinean Drama: A Well Executed Coming-Of-Age Story Set In Extraordinary Times
The Argentinean drama "Clandestine Childhood" is clearly a very personal film to its writer/director Benjamin Avila. Set in the late seventies, Argentina was under a strict military dictatorship and this created one of the most harrowing times in the country's history. The brutality of the junta is well documented, as are the efforts of those who sought to fight oppression. The army struck down anyone suspected of being in an opposition group with many being murdered and more simply vanishing with no trace. Indeed, the film's dedication is to Avila's mother who is one of those who disappeared. So it's easy to see why he would want to tell a story about a boy growing up in this environment. I mention the historical aspect that sets the scene for "Clandestine Childhood" because it helps to have a little context. If you know nothing of what occurred, the screenplay does not spell it out. While the political climate is certainly prevalent and quite significant throughout, the...

The Struggle to Exist Through the Eyes of a Child
For so many of us the governmental complexities that seem to occur with regularity in South America never seem to be clear. CLANDESTINE CHILDHOOD (`Infancia clandestine') offers the opportunity to not only be informed about the machinations of such movements, but also allows us entry into the personal view of the changes that political events impact so powerfully on the citizens.

Benjamín Ávila who wrote (with Marcelo Müller) and directed this brilliant little film is sharing his experiences of living through the times that his story relates. The year is 1979 and an Argentinean family who have been exiled in Cuba return to Argentina as Montoneros - a guerilla group fighting against the military junta that controlled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In a coup on March 24, 1976, a military junta seized power in Argentina and went on a campaign to wipe out left-wing terrorism with terror far worse than the one they were combating. Between 1976 and 1983 - under...

Tender coming of age story with serious political undercurrents
Let me state upfront that I am a big fan of the Film Movement library of indie and foreign films, so much so that earlier in 2012, I finally gave in and joined the "DVD of the Month" club. This film is the December, 2012 release of that and incidentally this film is also "Year 10, Film 12" of the club, meaning this film marks the 120th movie to be released by the Film Movement DVD of the Month club.

"Clandestine Childhood" (2012 release from Argentina; 110 min.) brings the story of an Argentinean family in exile in Cuby in the late 1970s, when the parents (who are members of the Monteneros guerrilla movement) decide to return to Argentina under assumed identities, so as to resume the underground fight agains the Argetine military Junta government. The parents bring along their 2 children, 11 yr. old Juan and a baby sister. Juan's new assumed name is Ernesto. Ernesto attends school as a 5th grader and he develops a crush on a class mate of his, a girl named Maria. Will...

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