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Mothers review
:. Director: Eduardo Félix Walger
:. Genre: Documentary
:. Running Time: 1:57
:. Year: 2007
:. Country: Argentina
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In Mothers, a documentary by writer/director Eduardo Félix Walger, we learn the story of the "Madres de la Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora", a group of Argentinean mothers who've been sticking together for years to find out what happened to their children, who were kidnapped by the military government during Argentina's Dirty War in the 1970's.
Through interviews with these women and archival footage, we witness the drift of a country from the idyllic Evita years to the dark and cruel times of the dictatorship's repression. Mothers is hard to watch at times, moving and revolting at the same time. This is certainly a story that needs to be told, especially at international levels, since audiences in the rest of world might not be familiar with the history of Argentina.
Having a good story doesn't however necessary guarantee having a good film and I quickly found myself lost and feeling a sense of déjà-vu. Mr. Walger seems only to be interested here in a sense of grief and injustice, which is certainly understandable, but in the process, he forgot to clearly expose the motivations behind the political engagement of the disappeared youth at that time and the government brutal reaction. While I'm suspecting that some interesting facts might have been lost in the bare subtitles provided, it is obvious that the filmmaker prefers spending time having us meet some of the victims rather than going into some political analysis.
Mr. Walger has built Mothers with the idea of shaking up the Argentinean government and population — which was too afraid to take a position — but by creating his film for the Argentinean market, he fails at creating a comprehensive work for international audiences.
While emotionally convincing by choosing the angle of a parent to convey the story, it undeniably brings us in known narrative territories, which undermines the power of the documentary. From the journey of parents looking for the truth about their missing children to cover-ups by the clergy, everything here has already been seen in director Costa-Gavras' filmography — Missing, Z & Amen most particularly. Following Mr. Costa-Gavras' blueprint, especially as the Greek director is an emblematic figure of a political cinema focusing on Latin and South Americas, turns Mothers into the redundant work of a follower, which certainly won't help this story to be heard around the world, which is too bad.
Fred Thom
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