La Sombra Azul (2012) Dir. Sergio Schmucler. Gustavo Almada and Julio Hormaeche, actors. Filmed in Cordoba, Argentina.

La Sombra Azul  (2012) Dir. Sergio Schmucler. Gustavo Almada and Julio Hormaeche, actors.  Filmed in Cordoba, Argentina.

I took inspiration to write and post this blog entry from Sergio Schmucler’s recent visit to the local college in the midwestern town where I live and from his presentation and discussion of his most recent film La Sombre Azul and his talk on the current state of independent film in Mexico, Argentina, and the world.

Sergio Schmucler's film La Sombre Azul (2012) portrays the torture of an Argentinian policeman accused of leftist thinking in Cordoba, Argentina, during the years 1976 to 1979, and the aftermath of that torture as depicted into the mid-1990s.  Front and center in the film is the tragedy of the torture itself with its long lasting damage to the individual but also to society.

This is a character-driven film with Third Cinema characteristics that works on multiple levels.  It tells the story of the victimized policeman as his life intersects over time with the lives of his family, other victims, perpetrators of torture and complicit officials, and human rights advocates, all in the context of the sociopolitical and historical situation (Argentina's "Dirty War").

Personally, I was intensely moved, by what I understood was a correct, complex, and subtle portrayal of the torture victim's post-traumatic stress (PTS).  The film depicts twenty years of a torture survivor’s life, and renders accurately in broad swaths and extended scenes the stages and symptoms of PTS. (Mature content may be difficult for some viewers but the film does not use violence gratuitously nor exploit viewers' emotions.)

The policeman, or protagonist's story, briefly, is this: after release from prison in 1979, he flees Argentina for Denmark with motives apparently both practical and psycho-emotional.  He withdraws to a quiet life largely lacking in interaction with people.  The film, director, and actor Gustavo Almada effectively convey the numbness of the man in the immediate aftermath of the trauma, the buried fear, distrust, and deep despair.  And later, as the survivor starts to emerge there remains this: who else could possibly understand? From the survivor's perspective even those closest to him could not be inside his experience and the wreckage left behind there. That the film succeeds in this casts that shadow into light.

In the story then, finally, driven by an inherent will to “be” and given resources and opportunity, the protagonist takes action and faces his torturer.  This is risky, dangerous even.  To confront the torturer involves reliving the terror, and speaking out revictimizes the victim, in circumstances like these in which the power structure in which the abuse occurred still exists. This criminal has not been called out, nor brought to justice.  On the contrary, this criminal has been promoted to a higher public office.  The danger plays out in the film when the victim's life is threatened again.

In an act of personal courage and in solidarity with experienced human rights activists the protagonist succeeds in applying public pressure sufficient to achieve one small correction within widespread social injustice.  Even then, in the end, the correction does not suffice to bring closure to him personally and in a dream-like sequence the victim confronts the perpetrator again.  With cold logic and self-pitying narcissism the perpetrator offers a calculated explanation for the torture he inflicted. 

What distinguishes this film starkly from movies on the mainstream market?  Well, just about everything, but this commentary is long, so I’ll highlight one element.  The film’s protagonist is no superhero.  He is an ordinary, yet extraordinary man who suffered and in the course of time healed  the way an ordinary and real person would.  He likely would remain haunted, though over time he might, by taking measured constructive steps free himself. Like writing or other creative processes, I believe trauma recovery is not a straightforward progression.  One goes forward, one goes back in a sort of recursive process, in circles of progression.   

After showing La Sombre Azul, and on a subsequent evening Schmucler gave a talk on film production and distribution that largely focused on movie markets, film festivals, and the hope he and colleagues have for creating more unconventional exhibition circuits to reach the public directly with independently made films. It was a relatively short but intricate and subtle analysis of today’s movie and film market that did not stoop to a reductive and easy conclusion such as the one I’m going to give here—that in the film industry as in the publishing industry as in practically everything nowadays, the unfettered free global market permits and promotes greed, and this exacerbates a “dumbing-down” of commercial mass media programming, including movies.

So it is, we really need independent film and filmmakers; independent writers, publishers, and booksellers; independent journalists and outlets for their reporting.  And, we need more forums like the one we had with Sergio Schmucler if we are going to resist the downward spiral into the insipid homogenized entertainment being produced and distributed for profiteering.