Argentina | the m0vie blog

233. Relatos salvajes (Wild Tales) (#178)

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Áine O’Connor, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Damián Szifron’s Relatos salvajes.

Six stories from modern day Argentina explore themes of violence and revenge, of anger and aggression, and of what happens when people stop behaving in the way that society expects them to and start indulging their wilder impulses.

At time of recording, it was ranked 178th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: aine o'connor, Anger, animals, anthology, Argentina, cannes film festival, civilisation, clamping, collapse, damián szifron, institutions, Marriage, politics, protests, rage, relatos slavajes, Ricardo Darín, Road rage, Short Films, society, three billboards, violence, wild tales | Leave a comment »

91. El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) (#136)

Posted on July 28, 2018 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Aine O’Connor, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode thrown in.

This time, Juan José Campanella’s El secreto de sus ojos.

Prompted by a desire to bring closure to an old case, retired detective Benjamín Espósito sets out to write a novel documenting his experiences during the turbulent seventies. Prying into his earlier investigation reawakens painful memories, and powerful emotions.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 136th best movie of all-time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: aine o'connor, Argentina, dictatorship, dirty war, El secreto de sus ojos, fear, Juan José Campanella, justice, love, revenge, secret in their eyes, the secret in their eyes | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Wakolda (aka The German Doctor)

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2014.

Wakolda is a good old-fashioned pulpy pot boiler. The latest film from writer and director Lucia Puenzo, adapted from her own novel, is set in Argentina in 1960. Given the title, it’s easy enough to predict which direction Puenzo’s piece of historical fiction will be going. The history of the Nazis who sought refuge in South America following the Second World War is pretty compelling stuff, and Puenzo skilfully builds off this basic premise.

As much as popular history likes to paint the Second World War as an epic conflict of good against evil that neatly tidied itself up, there were lots of lingering threads – lots of loose ends dangling from the edge of this historical tapestry. The flight from justice, the protection that these people were afforded, and the desperate desire to bring these criminals to justice makes for a gripping pulpy narrative – but there’s also something more unsettling at work.

After all, acknowledging that the history of Nazi war criminals does not end after the signing of the German surrender means confronting the reality that such beliefs and philosophies cannot be vanquished with the stroke of a pen. Darkness still lurks in the wider world.