By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 17, 2025)

There were many horrors endured by the citizens of Argentina in the course of that country’s  “Dirty War” period (1974-1983). Nicolás Gil Lavedra’s documentary primarily focuses on just one them: the methodical, State-sponsored extermination of dissidents (or those accused of being such) wherein people were kidnapped, tortured, drugged, and thrown to their deaths from airplanes.

These “death flights” included the kidnapping and murder of the “twelve of Santa Cruz,” a group of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, human rights activists and two French nuns captured in December 1977, which Lavedra covers in detail, mixing archival and present-day testimonials from former detainees, eyewitnesses, and journalists.

There is some redemption when you learn how a few (if not enough) of the perpetrators were eventually brought to justice. Interestingly, this was precipitated by the fact that, not unlike the Nazis, they kept meticulous records of their crimes (in this case, vis a vis dated flight logs that notated passenger counts).

Chilling and moving, this relatively understated film brings the human cost to the fore; making it a good companion piece to Luis Puenzo’s 1985 political drama The Official Story.

This is also a cautionary tale. When you consider that the term “Dirty War” was coined by the military junta, which one would assume was its way of self-justifying its atrocities, recent statements by government officials in our own country suggesting that habeas corpus “may” be suspended under the umbrella of “war powers” (what ‘war’?) should raise a red flag.