La Historia Oficial

The film begins five years after Alicia, a high school history teacher and, Roberto, a wealthy businessman and lawyer with close ties to the military junta, had adopted a baby girl named Gaby.



Alicia starts wondering about the real parents of Gaby, a topic her husband has told her to forget as it was a condition of the adoption. Yet, he knows the story of his daughter's adoption. While hard to believe, Alicia, as other members of the Argentine middle class, are not aware of how much killing and suffering has gone on in the country, until her students begin to complain that the "government approved" History books given to them were written by the regime's "assassins".



After Ana, Alicia's long time friend, returns from her exile in Europe, Alicia begins to do some political and personal research on her own. Ana had been tortured by ultra-right paramilitary forces loyal to the brutal Argentine regime for having lived with a so-called subversive man.



Alicia learns the identity of Gaby's grandmother, Sara, who reveals the identity of the girl's disappeared parents. She finds out that her husband played a major role in the regime's repression and participated in intensive dealings with foreign business representatives. At a family dinner, Roberto has an intense political argument with his father and brother, where he supports the political point of view of the ruling conservative military, and his father and brother argue from the side of social justice.



The film suggests that Sara may not actually be Gaby's real grandmother, and briefly explores the fact that Gaby's true family may never be known. This combination of fact and emotion are meant to suggest the mood of hope and hopelessness in reaction to a war environment.

The film ends with a confrontation between Alicia and her husband. He wants her to forget about the past and look to the future. When Roberto is told that Gaby is not home, Alicia responds: "how does it feel not knowing where your child is?" Although she tells him that Gaby is at his mother's house, he becomes enraged and assaults her, but is interrupted by the telephone ringing. He answers it, and starts talking to his mother. Alicia gets her purse to leave, indicating that she no longer can live with him.



At the conclusion of the film we see Gaby sitting alone in a rocking chair singing El país de no me acuerdo, the same nursery song of doubt and fear that she sang at the beginning of the film, apparently condemned to relive Alicia’s life.

In spite of this seemingly tragic ending, there are hopeful signs pointing toward positive changes in the future.

1. The mothers’ insistent demonstrations and their push for change in the streets seem to foretell a greater political role for Latin American women in the future.



2. The fact that Alicia’s friend Ana is able to return to Argentina after being tortured and exiled can be interpreted as a civil triumph over military dictatorship.

3. The students’ rejection of the ‘official story,’ the government’s account of Argentina’s present as well as its past, looks toward an awakening among Hispanic youth regarding Latin America’s history and the possibility of making a better future based on its lessons.

4. Alicia’s quest for the truth can be interpreted as a hopeful desire to confront social reality and find positive solutions to existing problems.

Alicia, was orphaned at an early age when her parents were killed in a car accident. However, her grandparents, wanted to spare her the pain of knowing her parents’ fate and withheld the truth from her. This resulted in Alicia feeling abandoned, uncertain and alone (HOPELESSNESS). Throughout the film, Alicia seeks the truth about Gaby (HOPE), and the truth leads to the destruction of her marriage and puts Gaby’s own future in doubt. As it concludes, Alicia once again is alone and facing personal uncertainty.



Roberto's lower-class immigrant family was forced to flee Spain during the civil war, and, apart from Roberto, remains stuck in economic hardship. By the conclusion of the film, Roberto too is loosing everything, his job, his security and his family in a sort of inevitable decline to his original roots.



Roberto’s father and brother suffered a downward spiral. The father not only lost his own country, but also his oldest son. He has failed to instill in him his own sense of ethics (HOPELESSNESS). The relationship between the two is strained; they have not spoken for months before they meet for a family luncheon, which ends in argument and unpleasantness. The brother has lost his wife and business, women reject him, and, according to his father, he appears to have developed a love of alcohol. He has had to return home to live with his parents and raise his three sons.

Is there hope for Gaby? I am not sure if Gaby will return to Alicia or not. But I do think that there is hope for Gaby. Gaby was being brought up in a good home, and treated very well. Values are instilled in children at a young age, and if they learn good values, they tend to use those values and continue on to be productive adults. I think that once Gaby finds out about her biological parents, she will be right out there every Thursday like the rest of the mothers' protesting for a change.