Torture for all concerned

On March 24, 1976, Jorge Rafael Videla's reactionary military junta seized power in Argentina. What was known as the "Dirty War" ensued. In this political war, somewhere between 9,000 and 30,000 Argentinian citizens disappeared. Disappeared as in taken from houses and off the street and often tortured and killed. Their crime was to be under suspicion of association with terrorists.

"Chronicle of an Escape" (Crónica de una fuga) is a docudrama of one such occurrence. Claudio Tamburrini was a soccer goalie on a B-league team. There was nothing remarkable about him and he was uninvolved in politics. Claudio (Rodrigo de la Serna) is taken from in front of his house and brought to a detention center, blindfolded and extremely confused and scared. The film focuses on his time spent at the center. The place is really a deserted mansion that sits only a few hundred feet from a fairly busy street. The fact that all of this can be conducted in very little secrecy tells you all you need to know about the conditions there and then.

Director Israel Adrián Caetano met with the people who really went through this hell before making "Chronicle of an Escape." There can be no question that what the men went through was horrendous. The problem is that somehow it doesn't translate to the screen. There are moments of suspense and a few where you can't help but get caught up in what you are watching but those moments occur mostly in the beginning of the film when we witness Claudio's mother being beaten to get her to tell where her son lives. Most of the time we are subjected to watching men plead while being threatened with violence. This can be compelling if it is confined to a scene or two but to expect us to watch it endlessly is a bit much.

"Chronicle of an Escape" also has a serious problem with its editing. It clocks in at 103 minutes, a fair amount of time to expect an audience to remain comfortable. If only they could have cut out about 70 of those minutes. Then we might have a decent half-hour of filmmaking. I wouldn't guarantee it, though.