Clandestine Childhood

Clandestine Childhood is the impressive first feature by Argentine director Benjamín Avila.

A charming, involving first feature, Clandestine Childhood muscles its familiar coming-of-age material into something more vibrant and urgent than the usual.

If such outré flourishes don't fully lift the story past the limitations of innocence-lost storytelling, they do suggest Ávila is an artist worth keeping an eye on.

Clandestine Childhood is a sincere effort but also rather sincerely a meager one too.

When a filmmaker proves as reluctant as Mr. Ávila to speak up about the past, to engage with its full complexity, it can be hard to hear what he's saying.

As is often the case with directors who adapt their own life-histories, there's the sense that a little too close to his material.

Benjamín Ávila structures the film as a series of precious moments, remembrances of a difficult year when the politics of patria and family got in the way of his puppy love.

This was the Argentina's submission for last year's American Academy Awards and failed to make into the final five. But it was a clean sweep in Argentinian Academy Awards in the same year. Forget that past sad occurrence, I mean the Oscars, this movie was great and I liked it very much. After a very long gap I saw an Argentinian movie reckoning to be a good and it was. I am satisfied and glad I saw it which was loosely based on the director's real life story when he was a child. This story was told from the perspective of a kid called Juan. His parents are the activists during the Cold War known as the Dirty War. After their return to the home country with different names, Juan joins the school known as Ernesto. He finds hard to understand his parents' behaviour, but comfortably settles with his new fake name with a little help from his uncle. The problem arises when his true identity matters the most. Whether he reveals or not is the crux of the movie's end. In my recent watch I had seen the people who struggle while protesting in a country's revolution. It might be based on real like 'NO' or fictional like 'Night Train to Lisbon', but majority of them end in heartbreak tragedy. Similarly, this movie opened its account in a simple manner like most of the drama that based on the revolution theme. Yes, of course it confuses at first about what's going on then slowly explain the situation. But all the difference and racy pace emerge suddenly in the last quarter of the movie. Till then I was in the movie trying to concentrate, but then instantly put me on the edge of my seat with cute romance and followed by thriller. That, the end portion of the story of last 10-15 minutes took the movie to the heights. Yes, like I said the movie kicks off with a slow and boring pace with nothing much to enjoy earlier and ends in a style. Some movies are largely depends on the story's end solution and so this. To me it looked fine movie, different people will have different opinions, so watch it by yourself and express yours.