Occasionally I hear about films that no one else seems to have. A lot of the times these turn out to be pretty good, other times… well, I can see why they disappeared. Recently a film called “Imagining Argentina” caught my eye on a list of films being released on DVD. Normally, with a title like that I would probably have passed it up, but I noticed the cast included Antonio Banderas (who impresses me more and more as an actor each year) and Emma Thompson (who can do no wrong). I opted to request it and give it a look. “Imagining Argentina” takes an odd mix of political turmoil and mysticism and tells a story of Carlos Rueda (Banderas), the director of a children’s theatre in Buenos Aires. It takes place during the 1970’s, where the disappearance of people off the streets was commonplace and unfortunately his wife Cecilia (Thompson) falls victim shortly after writing an inflammatory article. When he confronts the military leader, General Guzman (Ruben Blades) about all of these disappearances, he is all but shut out.

Soon after, Rueda starts seeing bloody visions of his wife’s capture and finds that these visions offer far more than his own answers. He finds that by looking into the faces of a person who has lost a loved one, he can ‘see’ what their fate was.

The film was based on the book of the same name, written by Lawrence Thornton. After watching the film, I really feel compelled to read the novel. Not so much because I liked the film, but more so in the hopes that it will answer the huge of amount of questions left by the film’s screenplay. The film is obviously forced to leave so much out because of the film’s running time and I felt that there had to be more. It wasn’t that the film was bad, it just seemed unfinished. Even so far as to refrain from explaining where these visions come from (though I’m not necessarily sure the books answers this either).

I really have to ride the fence as far as my recommendation of “Imagining Argentina” in that it is at times extremely grisly and violent, which makes the more serene scenes of garden séances feel horribly out of place. I’d say more about this movie, but honestly there isn’t really much more to say.

Universal opted not to add any kind of special features to this release, which I think it really suffers from. I would have enjoyed hearing some commentary or interview from director Christopher Hampton, or even author Thornton, in order to see if there was some deeper meaning to this film that I wasn’t catching.

Directed by: Christopher Hampton
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Emma Thompson, Ruben Blades, Maria Canals
Extras: None
Specifications: Widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Studio: Universal
Release Date: 10/11/2005
Region 1
MPAA Rating: R (Violence, Torture and Brief Language)
Website

We'll give Imagining Argentina a C-.