Time for Revenge

Bengoa is a former union organiser who hides his past and takes work as a blasting expert at a mining company. The company disregards worker safety entirely. With a colleague he makes a plan: they will stage a work accident and sue for compensation. But the colleague actually dies and Bengoa is left as the only one carrying it out. The fiction requires that he act as though the blast took his voice and speak to no one. For months he does not speak. Adolfo Aristarain shot and released the film in 1981, under the military dictatorship. The story of a man forced into silence could not be read any other way in the Argentina of that moment; the film passed the censors without much trouble and the audience understood what was being said. Federico Luppi plays Bengoa. The film won prizes at the Havana and Montreal festivals and was named best film in Argentina. Who it's for: Viewers who like Latin American political thrillers, noir structure, and cinema of the dictatorship years. Who it's not for: The pace is slow and the character's silence quiets the narrative too. The ending offers no hope.