Crónica de una Fuga

So last Thursday we (the proprietors of this here blawg) stumbled upon the cutting edge, by chance going to the opening night of Crónica de una Fuga, Adrián Caetano's new and prettyfuckingamazing dictatorship/torture movie. The story of four Argentine men, more or less free of political leanings, who are kidnapped and taken to a 'detention center' in the aptly-named suburb of Morón in the late 70s, the movie follows 120 days of interrogation and torture until the men escape one rainy night. A beautifully-filmed but unadorned movie, it is for better or worse free of all Hollywood conventions (and female characters, and clothing): Simply, basically, a glaring tale of what happens when a country goes off the tracks. Rodrigo de la Serna, of Motorcycle Diaries fame, is great. The lead heavy, Pablo Echarri, is somehow rakinshly evil, the supporting class hits all the right notes, and the 70s decor is frighteningly real (That 70s Show, but with beatings). The main actors and director later visited with the President, during which Echarri (waving in photo) manages to convey, without words, the first-time-there vibe of, "Hey mom, look, I'm with the Prez! Dude!"

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Maradona Watch, Part 735

After you've been suspended three times by your soccer league, had two coke-related heart attacks, and socked Miss Bora Bora with a glass, it might seem that you've achieved a kind of Platonic perfection in the 'embarrassing moments' category. Not, however, if you're the much-loved Diego Maradona. The most recent brouhaha concerns a commercials the patron saint of Argentina made in Brazil; the comedy lies in what he did afterwards. The kerfuffle began last week when Maradona wore a Brasilian national soccer shirt in a TV commercial (Fee: U$S 150,000), thus prompting some to suggest that, oh, wearing the national soccer jersey of Argentina's biggest sports rival might not be entirely patriotic. The excitement escalated when he told a bunch of reporters that, "Todos los putos que hablan hoy debido a que me puse la camiseta de Brasil son eso, ´putos´. Con el perdón de éstos, a quienes respeto mucho." (Roughly: "All those homos who are talking becasue I wore a Brasil t-shirt are just that, 'homos'. With all due repect to homosexuals, whom I repect.")

This, of course, does not end here. As a former star with the Boca Juniors team, Maradona could not, legally, allow a moment of free publicity escape without a dig at crosstown archrival River Plate (no matter how tenuously-related the dig might be). So Maradona continued, "Eso si, no me pondría jamás la de River, a pesar de que tengo en casa una de Passarella y otra de Francéscoli, no la usaría jamás." (Or: "That being said, I would never wear one from River, even though at home I have one from Passarella and another from Francéscoli. I would never use it.") Because, as we all know, betraying your barrio is worse than betraying your country.

UPDATE: My fellow blogger (and, well, wife) just noted to me that Branden over In the Argentine Metropolis... posted a v. similar piece on April 30. Great minds, as they say, think alike. And apparently so do ours...

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