In this film we have another drama about politics. The quote "nothing is fair in love and war" seems so true as we watch this film. Alicia and Roberto are unable to have children. Through Roberto's political connections, they are able to adopt a little girl named Gaby Gaby is a well adjusted (if not a bit spoiled), smart, and playful little girl who loves to sing. Her mother and her father are both attentive parents to her, she seems to be happy.
Alicia is a devoted mother and history teacher. It is obvious in the film that she loves her husband and daughter. I think that she is so immersed in teaching the distant past that she overlooks recent events. Everything is calm and as it should be in her world. When she starts to learn of the attrocities during the war and military takeover of Argentina, she at first does not believe it. She is blissfully ignorant up until that point. The more she learns however, the more curious she is. Her longtime best friend Anna who came to see her told her about her time in captivity. I think that this was really the first time Alicia believed that these atrocities happened. When Anna tells her of the pregnant women who would come back to the internment camp without their children, she immediately thought of what little she knew of Gaby's adoption. When she questions her husband he tells her not to worry about it. Wanting a baby as bad as she did, she can't help but sympathize with the women who had their children taken away. After investigating Gaby's birth and coming up with little information, she meets a woman who is part of a group that helps locate missing families. A woman approaches her and she thinks that Gaby could be her granddaughter. When meeting with Roberto, he goes ballistic tells the woman to get out and proceeds to physically abuse his wife.
There is hope for Gaby. She has a mother who loves her and wants her to know where and what she came from. In the future she will tell her what happened to her birthparents. If the other woman is truly her grandmother she will become a part of her life. You could already see the relationship between Alicia and Gaby's grandmother forming. Even though the grandmother obviously loved her daughter, I think she would leave Gaby with Alicia. She sees that the girl is happy and loved. I am not sure what would have happened between Alicia and Roberto. Despite being a total ass at times, I could see that he loved his daughter and was afraid of losing her. I really don't think much would change for Gaby as a child. As Gaby gets older, after learning of her birth parents, I think that she will be a "anarchist" like her grandfather. I didn't feel this movie evoked hopelessness. It is my belief that through every adversity there is always hope. Hope for a better future, hope for a better tomorrow.
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Kisha, it's great that you picked up on the fact that Alicia was living in the past history of what she was teaching. I too wondered why she had never question the adoption of Gaby before she was 5 years old. Demonstrations in the streets obviously had not just started the day Ana described her experience of being tortured over the past years. Hadn't Alicia wondered before or was she so sheltered in her own world that she could ignore what was going on politically. The television reports in her own home reported current events.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that there is always hope, even when life seems hopeless. Hope for a better future, hope for a better tomorrow, I like that!
Lastly, Alicia show true strength in her actions, I believe she would do the best for Gaby in whatever the cost was to herself. She portrayed a selfless, loving mother. Thanks for your blog
Your post was right on Kisha. I picked up on pretty much the same ideas you did as far as Alicia not being very current on the events that had unfolded in the recent years past. It was her students that more or less opened her eyes. One student even raised the question that maybe they wrote what they "wanted" people to believe and not what really happened. Throught further investigation we know Alicia was able to learn the truth. As each day passed more and more information was making Alicia uneasy. The fact that her husband would not tell Alicia what she wanted to know about Gaby only made her even more anxious. At one point in the film Alicia breaks down and cries in the cafe becase at that point she knew that something was amiss.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that Gaby would most likely stay with Alicia and Roberto because they adore this little girl. I think too they would let this other woman see Gaby if she so wished. I think the pressure that was put on Roberto by Alicia about the whole situation maybe changed Roberto's thoughts about what he had done.