Imagining Argentina Details

The idea that imagination can free people trapped in horrendous circumstances has been used in movies as diverse as Brazil and Kiss of the Spider Woman. Writer/director Christopher Hampton here explores a similar theme against the backdrop of Argentina's military dictatorship but fluffs it badly, despite delivering a worthwhile reminder of a grim period in that country's history. Carlos (Antonio Banderas) is a writer whose journalist wife (Emma Thompson) is arrested by the junta and becomes one of the growing legion of the “disappeared”. Carlos discovers that he can psychically “see” the fates of these victims, though his wife's whereabouts remain a mystery. While this kind of magical realism may have worked in the novel from which the film is adapted, here it just looks ludicrous: Banderas comes across like a politically charged Doris Stokes; Thompson's character exists mainly to be brutalised by pantomime sadists and the denouement is bog-standard Hollywood mush.