With his slicked back hair, his sunglasses and his big mustache, the prosecutor Strassera corresponds to the composite portrait of the model magistrate, such as a military junta can dream of. Moreover, in reality, the generals and admirals who governed Argentina had little to complain about “doctor” (in law) Julio César Strassera as long as they were in charge of the country, from 1976 to 1983.
Entrusting the role of Strassera to the most popular actor – and the best known abroad – of Argentine cinema, Ricardo Darin, director Santiago Miter makes no secret of his intentions: Argentina, 1985 will represent the transfiguration of an ordinary man, a cog in the judiciary that has become an instrument of change, since he sued the military during the trial of the Argentine junta in 1985. In the same movement, Miter wants to embrace the tectonic movement that saw his immense country pass from the era of dictatorships to that of democracy.
The filmmaker, who, at the start of his career, had followed in the footsteps of the pioneers of Argentine auteur cinema – Pablo Trapero or Lucrecia Martel – here resorts to a more familiar language, that of Hollywood trial films, putting dramaturgy judiciary in the service of the exposure of a monstrous history, that of the extermination of tens of thousands of Argentines and Argentineans by their army and their police. The rigor of the writing (the screenplay is by Miter and Marian Llinas), the talent and skill of Ricardo Darin, and the brute force of the facts evoked almost make you forget the classicism of the form.
Irrefutable testimonials
Argentina, 1985 begins when military justice is removed from the trial of members of the junta, who had to cede power to a democratically elected president, the radical Raul Alfonsin. Prosecutor Strassera, who has maintained a cautious neutrality when dealing with cases involving the police, is in charge of the case. The first sequences depict the daily life of this petty bourgeois, spurred on by a woman more lively than him (Alejandra Fechner), a powerless patriarch in the face of the mysteries of his daughter’s sentimental life.
The director wants to embrace the tectonic movement that saw Argentina pass from the era of dictatorships to that of democracy
At first skeptical as to the leeway that the inevitable compromises between the young civil power and the armed forces would leave him, the doctor Strassera is gradually gaining confidence. Supported by old human rights activists, his contemporaries (he was then in his fifties) but also and above all by a new generation of jurists.
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