Hunters of Utopia

CAMPO, JAVIER

Directory of World Cinema: Argentina 2

Intellect

Lugar: Bristol; Año: 2016; p. 214 - 215

DavidBlaustein was exiled in Mexico during the military dictatorship (1976?1983). Sincereturning to Argentina, he became discomfited by certain films that were criticalof recent political history. Those films avoided telling the story of thepolitical militancy of the 1970s ? which was understandable, because a seriesof ?prohibitions? were established by judicial strategies in order to jailthose responsible for the terror. These prohibitions included presenting thedisappeared as people who had not participated politically. But what madeBlaustein and other comrades angriest about these films was that the militantswere presented in speeches as demented or as criminals. Cazadores de utopías/Hunters of Utopia is a history of militancy asboth a sane assessment of the life and a defence of the ideals brandished byleftist Peronist political organizations of the 1970s. The film is narratedexclusively by witnesses, who recount stories of kidnapping and torture. A toughfilm, it is dedicated not only to former militants, but also to addressing thenew generations that were already speaking critically about the neoliberalpolicies of the government of Carlos Menem, who was, paradoxically, also aPeronist. Itis a groundbreaking film that represents the new political narratives of the1960s and pioneered an extensive series of political documentaries thatcontinues today.[]