Burnt Oranges

“Burnt Oranges” [dvd; 2005]

The flavor of a burnt orange is smoky and bittersweet, and so is this invitation to share the sensual, nurturing experience of a journey home to Argentina. Still, we are reminded early in "Burnt Oranges" that there is a distinction between “what we remember and what cannot be forgotten.” Poetic narrative, written by Monica Flores Correa and spoken by Silvia Malagrino, structures the film and is based on letters by the two friends who fled their country at different times. Precise, wistful and nostalgic, the narrator hopes to find the Buenos Aires of her past and understands that we are all exiles from the homeland of memory, but her evocation of exile is more than simple sentiment. Malagrino left at a time when countless other Argentineans were being disappeared during the “Dirty War,” and the journey to reclaim her past becomes part of Argentina’s journey to find the Disappeared. Up to 30,000 people were killed by the military regime that came to power in 1976.

At the heart of "Burnt Oranges," we find the Mothers of the Disappeared, the women who refused to deny that their children were missing. When no one else could resist the regime, they came together in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo and marched to demand the truth from their government. I cannot say enough about them, these ordinary women who showed extraordinary love, courage, strength, and resolve. Through these women, the film takes us to the profoundest truth of memory: the Disappeared never ceased to be present. The Mothers came together and reached through their common loss to give their vanished children new life and meaning, and to wrench a precious serenity from unimaginable pain.

Deftly weaving image and music to narrative, editor Sharon Karp engages us emotionally and visually in Malagrino’s journey home. When the camera rises from the streets of Buenos Aires to the sky, the sun itself echoes the central image of the film. "Burnt Oranges" extends the documentary genre to explore the dimensions of truth, memory and love, and the relationship of these to sanity and resolve. If the true work of history is to construct memory that can resist the coercion to erase the past, this film performs superbly. [edited by author]

[Gem rating: moonstone with emerald]