Narrative Strategies of Post-Genocide Argentine Filmmaking: The Decade of the 1980s

LIOR ZYLBERMAN

Genocide Studies and Prevention

International Association of Genocide Scholars

Año: 2013 vol. 8 p. 45 - 56

1911-0359

This work is part of a broader study. This article analyzes Argentine films about the genocide perpetrated by the country´s last military dictatorship (1976-1983). The focus is on the films produced during the 1980s, specifically those made between 1984 and 1989. Generally these films have been analyzed from an aesthetic perspective, or else from a chronological standpoint that connects their historical context to the design aspects of individual films, their mise-en-scène. Central to this latter approach has been what is termed a prevailing ´theory of the two demons´. This approach is generally valid, however this article posits that in their narrative strategies? that is, their plots, ideas, and stories? Argentinean films from the late-1980s present a wealth of elements that exceed such narrow theorizing, in the process enabling comparisons and contrasts with other studies of the country?s genocide.