Clandestine Childhood (2012)
This is mostly a fairly whimsical almost feel good charming coming of age story. Only the viewpoint is told from a 11 year old boy whose parents are in the resistance group during the dictatorship in Argentina in 1979, so his childhood isn’t quite normal. Their house is a meeting point for other resistance fighters, they have weapons stored and installed secret hiding rooms in case the police comes. But he just wants a normal childhood with things like birthday parties and maybe a girlfriend.
What is interesting about this perspective is that the politics of that period in Argentinian history fades into the background, so we just see the effects this has for the boy. There is no direct judgement here on whether the fight was worth it, but the movie does seem to want to portray the cost of living it has for one who deserves a normal childhood. It has some rather emotional scenes that contrasts the almost rose-tinted memory of childhood it shows, but the discrepancy works because it must have been a time full of conflicting experiences and clearly a personal film for the director.
Rating: 3.5