Maria Vaner Movies

In this drama, the poor people living in the shantytowns surrounding Buenos Aires take tentative steps to resist the efforts of the military junta to tear down their shacks and put them out on the streets. One resisters is shown being forced into the trunk of a car by the military, which is a certain sentence of torture and death. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this heartfelt romance, an Argentine woman married to a Turk tells him of her greatest past love. She met the old flame in 1975 while living with her family in Buenos Aires. She was a young, naive girl and he an anthropology major at the local university. A passionate leftist, active in student demonstrations, he falls in love with her and desperately wants to marry her, but nationwide political upheaval forces them apart. Because the radical and his group are constantly under government fire, he flees to live in Stockholm, Sweden. The lovesick girl eventually follows him, and together they find brief respite living with other expatriates in a country home. But as time passes, the radical grows increasingly restless and distances himself from the girl. In retaliation she turns to the Turkish fellow and, though she is continually haunted by her first love, tries to forge a new life with him. An interesting character portrait, the story is somewhat based on a real life situation. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

When the military junta that ruled Argentina was in power, from 1976 to 1983, Oso was in power with them, as a military thug and torturer. People feared him and shied away from him on the streets. He liked that. Now he is an extremely unpopular man in Buenos Aires, and he goes back home to his mother's house in the provinces far away from there. At his old home, he finds that he cannot make connections with people -- it's been too long since he visited last, and even his former lover wants nothing to do with him. He returns to the city, only to be hounded by the father of one of the desapericidos, the men he kidnapped and murdered. He tries to find the remnants of his old military organization, but there is no one who will stand with him. Everyone of them is in hiding in one way or another. This doesn't sit well with him, and his thoughts begin to take a decidedly vengeful tone. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

After she shot the man who killed her father, the woman in this film was sentenced to seven years in prison. Her husband faithfully awaited her, and the movie explores their lives together and apart, their joy at being reunited, and their eventual estrangement. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This well-acted psychological drama was wildly popular in its native Argentina, in part because it was based on the best-selling novel Heroina by Emilio Rodrigue. With a dispassionate, measured tone, it tells the story of a well-to-do girl, Penny (Graciela Borges), who seeks psychiatric help after making a suicide attempt. She has made attempts to socialize with working-class people rather than her own peer-group but is unable to break through to them. Perhaps it is her own emotional stiffness. Things become much more lively for her once she gets to the analyst's couch. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This 1964 drama directed by Leonardo Favio was shown at the Latino Film Festival on August 13th, 1987 in New York. Polin (Diego Puente) is an impoverished street urchin in a child rehabilitation center. He escapes in to the squalid slums of Buenos Aires. Even in the deplorable living conditions, Polin finds temporary freedom and happiness away from the grim institution. Director Favio co-stars with Beto Gianola and Maria Vaner. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

To the casual observer, the Argentine El Secuestador (The Kidnapper) seems to wallow in sordidness for its own sake. The characters are all dirt-poor, and their surroundings relentlessly filthy. The "hero" and "heroine" spend most of their time consummating their romance, most memorably (and audaciously) during a consensual-rape scene in a mortuary. And in another scene, a huge pig swallows the corpse of a baby. The point of El Secuestador seems to be to show the horrible consequences of grinding poverty, and to expose the hypocrisy of the rotten-to-the-core Establishment in dealing with that poverty. Director Leopoldo Torre-Nillson, here as elsewhere, is a superb visual stylist; the more sensitive viewer, however, may not be able to watch that style unfold for more than a few minutes at a time. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi