A new film portraying the horrors of the 1982 Falklands War between Britain and Argentina.


The Argentine ship, Belgrano, sinking after it was attacked by the Royal Navy. A survivor took the photo whilst he was in a lifeboat.

7 September 2005
Argentine film aims to heal wounds of Falklands War
By Mary Milliken

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Bloody, ragged and retreating, the Argentine conscripts come upon a soccer ball that briefly lifts their spirits as Argentina surrenders to British forces in the 1982 Falklands War.



The scene from a new Argentine film is a wrenching reminder of the innocence of 18-year-olds forced to fight a war on freezing islands for foolhardy dictators.



"Enlightened by Fire", which opens this week, is the first major Argentine film to portray the horrors of the 10-week war in the South Atlantic islands that Argentines call the Malvinas and still claim as theirs.


Argentina insists it inherited the remote archipelago of some 2,200 people of mostly British descent from Spain before they were occupied by Britain in 1833.


Playing on centuries-old nationalist fervor, Argentina's military dictatorship at the time, led by the infamous Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, declared war against Britain to reclaim the Falklands in a failed attempt to mask growing criticism of the military regime and the woes of a crumbling economy.



HMS Antelope being bombed and sunk.

Argentine director Tristan Bauer hopes the film will help Argentines come to grips with a humiliating defeat that also helped topple the dictatorship. Passions still run deep in Argentina over claims to the Falklands, but for most the botched war represents just another brutality committed by a government during whose rule some 30,000 people "disappeared".


"The day after defeat, the Argentine forces had orders to 'de-Malvinize,'" said Bauer. "The soldiers who came back had to sign a document that was like a pact of silence. The Malvinas would not be discussed."


One of those soldiers who signed the document was Edgardo Esteban, author of the book that inspired the movie. He was 19 and about to finish his conscription when Argentina invaded the islands.


Esteban and 9,000 conscripts, or three-quarters of the Argentine forces, had little food and froze in their thin parkas. When caught stealing rations or killing sheep, they were "staked" by their superiors -- spread-eagled and tied to stakes in the ground and left to freeze in the cold rain.


The teenagers also witnessed terrible deaths in the nighttime battles, when the British would pin them to the hillside with incessant bombing and shelling from sea.


Argentine soldiers being taken prisoner by the British after being defeated in the Battle of Goose Green.

"When you are 18, you don't think about death. But ever since this war, death has been with us constantly," said Esteban, now a TV journalist. "Two things help me close this chapter -- the book and now the movie."


NO HEROES WELCOME


The film, which took five years to make and was shot in the Falklands and Argentina, meshes Esteban's experiences and those of other veterans.


It also incorporates news reel images, like those showing thousands of Argentines at the outset of the battles, cheering on Galtieri after he declared war.


The film opens with a veteran's suicide in Buenos Aires several years after the war, leaving the main character, Esteban Leguizamon, the sole survivor of his foxhole group of three. One had died in a battle vividly depicted in the film.


The suicide takes Esteban back to the war in flashbacks and to the present-day Falklands, where he finds his foxhole and belongings he had stashed in the walls.


Some 350 veterans have committed suicide since the war, more than those who died in land battles on the Falklands. Another 370 died when the General Belgrano battleship sank.


Argentine movie critic Julia Montesoro said the film should spark a debate about the debt Argentina owes its veterans, most of whom never received decent pensions nor assistance for post-combat disorders.


"It is a good movie. It is tough to see, but I think that is necessary," said Montesoro, who reviews films for leading daily La Nacion and Radio Continental.


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Gurkhas approach Tumbledown Mountain.

September 10, 2005

Veterans weep as film breaks silence on Falklands war
From Fiona McCann in Buenos Aires



“ARE you crying? Do you want to go home to your mother?” a sergeant barks at a trembling Argentine teenager being sent into battle.

It is one of the many poignant scenes in a new Argentine film about the Falklands conflict, and when the lights go up in a Buenos Aires cinema, grown men are crying in their seats.



It is this reaction, after years of silence, that Tristan Bauer, the director of Iluminados por el Fuego (Enlightened by Fire), had in mind when he chose to make a film about the Falklands campaign.

“It was not for us to beat ourselves up with, but to reflect on, and to find a way to change,” explained the Argentine director, who first rose to prominence with a documentary on Eva Peron’s grave, produced in association with Channel 4.

“We went into this project with the willingness to change, the willingness to take on a fragment of our memory, a piece of our heart and history,” he said.

The film is the story of Esteban Leguizamón, a 40-year-old journalist and veteran of the war, who finds out that the only other surviving member of his foxhole of three has committed suicide. The news brings him back to his gruelling experience: the freezing cold, the starving, the incompetent generals and bloody battlefields.

Iluminados por el Fuego, which may be shown in Britain next year, is based on a book by Edgardo Esteban, a Falklands veteran. It is his personal story that has been transferred to the big screen. Sovereignty of the Malvinas islands, as they are known in Argentina, has long been a political issue but the film focuses on the personal.

Señor Esteban said: “It’s about rescuing this human story. It’s not political. It’s just a story of my experiences, a reconstruction of the event from a human point of view.” Having been conscripted at the age of 19, Señor Esteban lived through the horror that was the conflict for Argentine soldiers. He was part of an army of unprepared, often untrained youths sent to stake Argentina’s long-held claim to the islands.

“We were innocent, we were naive, we were very confused,” he said of the men who were cannon fodder in a political strategy that backfired and helped to bring the downfall of the country’s military dictatorship. The war was over in 72 days, as the vastly superior British Army overcame the Argentine forces. Just under 1,000 soldiers lost their lives, two thirds of them Argentine. When the survivors returned home they expected a hero’s welcome. Instead, they were met with silence and asked to sign documents agreeing not to speak of the fighting.

For Señor Esteban, Iluminados por el Fuego is about breaking that code of silence. As part of his own process of reconciliation he was among the first veterans to visit the islands after the conflict, a moment poignantly depicted in the film. He was also the first to visit Darwin cemetery, where many were buried. Since their return home, more than 300 Argentinians veterans have committed suicide, almost half the number that perished on the battlefields.

After weeks of camping outside Government Palace last year, the Falklands veterans were granted a substantial rise in their pensions. And through the new film, which went on general release in Argentina this week, their story has reached the big screen.


Alfredo Astiz signing the surrender document on board the British HMS Plymouth


The film has received positive reviews in the Argentine media, with the bestselling daily newspaper Clarín calling it a “homage that calls for the remembrance of all those who fell in battle, and all those who continue to fall every day”. It is this intrinsically human aspect that, for Señor Esteban, is the film’s central message. “People are dying all over the world,” he said. “And each one has a story to tell.”

CONFLICT OVER DISPUTED ISLANDS


The Falklands conflict between Britain and Argentina over the ownership of the islands in the South Atlantic took place from March to June in 1982


Expecting a quick victory, the regime of General Galtieri invaded the islands, hoping to deflect attention from a devastating economic crisis and civil unrest

Britain launched a naval task force against the Argentine Navy and Air Force, retaking the islands

655 Argentine soldiers were killed and 1,100 were wounded. More than 11,000 were captured. British casualties totalled 255 dead and 746 wounded


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