Racing Club 0  Argentinos Juniors  1

I’m not going to say it since when I said it last season after Argentinos Juniors strung a few victories together, they went on to lose and draw their next batch of games. But three wins on the trot and….no! Resist! Resist!

It’s a week now since the Oscars were handed out but the glitz is still glittering here in Argentina and no-one wants to roll up their red carpets. For an Argentine film, El Secreto de sus Ojos or The Secret In Their Eyes won the best foreign film award. That’s the one they present between the Oscar for Most Comfy Director’s Chair and Best Sandwiches Sold on Set.

Basically, very few people outside of the countries concerned give a toss. Least of all the film critics. Here are a couple of quotes from critics of that reputable British newspaper, The Guardian. These are people paid to do nothing more than sit in a darkened room eating popcorn and commenting on the films they see. I always used to wonder why actors and directors were so disparaging about film critics, talking about them in the same way the rest of us discuss estate agents and football referees. Now I know.

The first nominee out of the envelope is the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw who wrote: “I must now confess that I have not yet seen Juan José Campanella’s The Secret of Their Eyes – it is much liked and admired, but I can’t help feeling that this is a real banana-skin moment. It puts me in mind of Ronald Bergan’s online discussion of how, in the history of world cinema, the Oscar for the best foreign language film is traditionally given to the wrong film.”

His colleague, Xan Brooks, informs us: “OK, so I have yet to see The Secret in Her Eyes and maybe it’s brilliant. Until then, this result strikes me as more than a little perverse.”

Have they no shame? They don’t make films, they don’t write films and they don’t even watch the films they criticise. In what other job can you do that? “I didn’t see the game since I was painting the bathroom at the time. But I thought the United midfield was crap and the referee, when will he get his eyes tested? In my informed opinion, City are dead certs for the title but I’ll let you know more when I finally get to see them play.”

OK, you may say, it’s only the foreign language film. But what First World arrogance! Neither even bothered to get the English translation of the title right. Would they treat a US or a British film with such lazy contempt?

Now that I’ve got that off my chest I can tell you that I have seen the film. Pretty much everyone in Argentina has and those who haven’t will be queuing up outside their nearest cinema as we speak.

It’s a very good rather than a great movie. I’ve not seen the other Oscar nominees so I wouldn’t dare to hazard an opinion on whether it was the best of the batch in the foreign language section.

It’s a thriller, a murder hunt set in both the nineteen-seventies during Argentina’s military dictatorship and in the present day. It beautifully evokes both eras, is wonderfully acted and football plays a key role in the story.

That’s no surprise when you consider that the Oscar winning director, Juan José Campanella is a River Plate fan and the original story writer and script editor, Eduardo Sacheri, follows Independiente.

But it’s Racing Club, Independiente’s rivals, which have the starring role and Sacheri admits that he found it uncomfortable to have to talk to their fans during the course of his research.

An obsession with football plays a big part in solving the mystery although I obviously can’t reveal more since I’m recommending that you see the film. There is also a great chase scene set in the Huracan stadium in a supposed game between Huracan and Racing.

http://www.ole.clarin.com/notas/2010/03/08/informaciongeneral/02154969.html

“And the Oscar for Best Football Stadium….wait for it…goes to Huracan’s Tomás Adolfo Ducó stadium in The Secret In Their Eyes.”

The other element which stuck in my mind long after I left the cinema was the way Campanella illustrated how dictatorships encourage the pathetic little people to emerge and rise to positions of prominence. Once there, they’re able to wreak their revenge on a society they feel has slighted them. We all know who they are. How many assistant tax inspectors, estate agents and film critics rose to positions of prominence in Germany’s Nazi Party? Slugs, who in normal society would have been ignored or treated with the contempt they deserved, revelled in and abused their authority. The Secret In Their Eyes shows the same kind of people thriving in an Argentine system that was rotten to the core.

Argentina has only ever won the Oscar once before, in 1985 for The Official Story, again about the military dictatorship that terrorised the country between 1976 and 1983. These winners are an important advert for the Argentine film industry and for the country itself since most foreigners might never see another film from this part of the world.

Argentina simply doesn’t have the money to make many films but it nonetheless has an enthusiastic and knowledgeable cinema-going public and a small but talented movie industry. The same few actors tend to crop up in almost every production because the money-men can’t afford to gamble on the untried and the un-trusted – so you can bet the price of a bag of popcorn that if Ricardo Darin isn’t in the Argentine film you’re about to watch, then Gaston Pauls will be.

There’s a neighbourhood of Buenos Aires that’s been dubbed Palermo Hollywood simply because so many film directors and students from across Latin America have congregated there to discuss the finer points of Buñuel and Bergman…and to make the odd film.

Of course, Hollywood dominates like it does in much of the rest of the world. But the cinemas in Buenos Aires are generally packed, especially for the weekend late-night screenings.

This game didn’t deserve much in the way of prizes, not even a nomination. The only drama came late in the second half. Nicholas Pavlovich scored the winner after a neat move by the visitors. Racing then managed to fluff a penalty which would have given them an ill-deserved draw. It was still more entertaining than an Oscar acceptance speech and the good guys won in the end.