Film: Sr. Presidente (Mr. President) (documentary)
Studio: C & C Producciones
Directors: Liliana Arraya and Eugenia Monti
Screening Date: May 20, 2008 Toronto Hispano-American Film Festival
Film Length: 55 minutes
Rating: Unrated 

Reviewer: Rodrigo Toromoreno (Toronto Correspondent - Canada) 

Argentina is a country, like many others found in South America, recognized by North Americans for the exotic aspects of its culture instead of its political turmoil. Carlos Gardel's tangos, at least to an older generation, are remembered with much more ease than the guerra sucia (Dirty War) of 32 years ago. During this period, spanning from 1976 to 1983, thousands of children and adults disappeared as they were sequestered, tortured, and killed by the military government of the country and has since been an irremovable stain in the collective memory of its people. Consequently, the grief felt by those directly and indirectly affected has been difficult to express due to the abhorrent nature of the events. With a scarcity of adjectives potent enough to convey the experiences of those who survived the Dirty War, the visual aspect of the film medium become a tool for artists to communicate these stories.

Liliana Arraya and Eugenia Monti approach the matter through a documentary which investigates the claims made by a letter to former president Jorge Rafael from someone who carried out the tortures during the clandestine war. Within the letter, a complaint was made about the unsanitary conditions created by the numerous decaying cadavers that, due to the secrecy of the operation, could no be publicly disposed. Serving as a narrative arch for the documentary to explore the atrocities, the stoic style of writing found in the letter functions to provide a contrast to the testimonials of the victims' family members. In this sense, the directors succeed in balancing the subjective and objective narratives that jointly constitute this film. Furthermore, a third perspective is added to these as the inclusion of forensic anthropology becomes the primary means for determining the identity of the perished.  

With the identification of the corpses dug up from the cemetery of St. Vicenete in Córdoba, the relatives of dead are finally able to give them a proper burial. It is precisely this point that allows the film to address this issue in an original manner; although nameless to their executioners, identity is restored to the individuals through the idiosyncratic memories of those that feel their absence. Science is usually seen as a discipline detached from any human sentiments; yet, faced with an event that is founded on depersonalization, it assists in reassigning human value to those people once generically labelled as ‘missing'.

Films concerned with this period in Argentine history are as abundant as any other genre film, the most popular of these being Luis Puenzo's award-winning The Official Story (1985). Perhaps it is the need to create a work that distances itself from the monumental film that drives the directors of Mr. President to make questionable stylistic choices. The rapid editing mimics the currents of electricity that were applied on the bodies of the victims as a form of torture. Although it is an ingenious use of form to reflect content, the pacing of the scenes during which it is used conflict with this editing technique. This unnecessary element depreciates a documentary that could have excelled on mere content and narrative structure. 

As a documentary that explores a variety of vantage points, Mr. President proves, aside from its technical flaws, to be an important display of cinema's humanitarian capabilities.