Clandestine Childhood

A totally dramatic, deep and emotional film, I highly recommend it.

Infancia Clandestina is a very touching movie.

This review is written by an Argentinian so I felt it as a very interesting film in terms of script and acting, but more interesting as a historical testimony of our "dark ages" in terms of dictatorship and guerrilla. It would be fair to write the review in Spanish in order to put my feelings properly, but IMDb is mostly an English language site so I want to give other people from foreign countries my point of view with the little English I speak.

From my perspective, the movie is accurately told in terms of storyline. I would recommend it as a documentary, because Benjamín Avila relived his own experience on this movie, and because most of the facts really happened (with the names changed and that sort of thing).

The fact that underlines the tragic story of Juan/Ernesto, is that he is, as a child, forced to live in a world of fear, constantly missing what we think a normal childhood should be. His parents are loving ones but put him in abnormal situations in terms of caring for their livings and raise their children in those violent conditions. In fact, the story of the 70's here was that fearful and violent. You are obliged to take a part in the story. That's what the film left me. It's a thought- provoking one. And asks a lot of questions more than it tells answers.

Ernesto Alterio (very good in his role) as Tío Beto is the bond of Juan/Ernesto to a happy childhood; but even with knowing how his life could end from one moment to another, tried to remind Juan/Ernesto and the rest of the family, those little moments of humanity that could have been forgotten in the middle of tragedy. There is plenty of humanity, but that feeling is volatile and more close to self-indulgence than true happiness, knowing the curse of events.

On the other hand, the guiding line of Juan/Ernesto's family is that he 'd become one of their "soldiers" when he'd grown up. Rootless, full of hate for losing one by one his loved ones, Juan/Ernesto becomes an adult from one day to another.

But this review is not complete if I don't give you a personal opinion of the whole situation.

Ideologies, partidisms, dogma, they all conceived death as a part of them. During the movie I often compared the situation with Islamic children (or whoever is forced to live in war since a child). They are children, and they are manipulated taking part on massacres, kidnaps, war and dismemberance of their families. They are brutally witnessing the grown-ups stupidity, the absurd sacrifice. Yes, it was absurd then and it's absurd now. And that's the thing with the title of this review. Even a kid could realize the barbarism, the destruction of life that is presented in the movie. Unfortunately there is little room for choice.

I'm not in position to judge the events since I was born after the dictatorship. I'm a son of democracy (whatever that means) and those stories are told to me, but fortunately I didn't have to live those tragic times. But I feel sorry for those kids who had a sad childhood and couldn't choose for a better life. And I blame the dictatorship as well as the contraire ideologies that put them in those awful and despicable situations.

Coming back to the movie, it's a must. Even if you're not Argentinian. It's beautiful and a bit surrealistic. And it makes you think that some things can never be repeated for our children's sake.

Greetings from Argentina!

When we see this movie, we start to think: what kind of people voluntarily put their own children in the middle of a dirty war?? What kind of fanaticism produces people like these? Unfortunately that kind of "leftist" fanaticism of the 1970's is somehow being replaced by other kinds of fanaticism so many innocent "idealists" keep falling for the sake of "ideas", ideologies or religions. In the middle of that craziness the only sane voice seems to be the kid's grandmother. But nevertheless, despite the sad story (the world is full of sad stories, isn't it?), this movie is very well realized and the acting, direction and editing are very good. The idea of using drawings to replace certain violent scenes was already used before in an Israeli movie but nevertheless was very well done.

It's 1979, Argentina. 12 year old Juan and his family returns after their exile in Cuba. They are guerrillas hunted by the military junta. Juan hides his true identity to everyone including his friends at school where they know him as Ernesto.

It's an Argentinian film with the potential of compelling characters. For a film of paranoia, we need to feel it much more. The filmmaking style is slow paced. It needs a lot more energy, and I'm not advocating some big action scene. There's got to be more intensity in this story.

The kids do good work. I like their characters. Their scenes have the intensity I'm talking about. I actually think the adults don't contribute as much. This feels like a lesser 'Running on Empty'. I do like the animation to break up some of the violence. It works well as from a child's point of view. Overall it tells an interesting story.

I stumbled across this during quarantine and I'm really glad I did. It was not what I expected, but often times thats a good thing and this film was no exception. If you can get by the political aspects of the film, something I try to do, and just watch it for the story and archs of the characters, it is quite powerful. If you choose to research the political aspects of the film, I encourage you to do so. I'm not going to single out any performances as they were good-not great- however they were more than enough to fuel this magnificent script. I'll mark the production value with the same mark as the cast, but again, more than enough there to carry you on this journey. You will cry, you will cheer, the absence of either would make me question your humanity. Give it a go!