The Attachment Diaries (El apego) is written and directed by Valentin Javier Diment, who draws on his previous two documentary features about the very real horrors of a military dictatorship and two urban guerrilla movements that left thousands dead or missing in 1970s Argentina. That same atmosphere of terror can be felt in these fictional Diaries from the very first scenes, as we follow Carla (Jimena Anganuzzi), a young woman who is seeking a clandestine abortion, and Irina (Lola Berthet), the doctor she turns to in her desperation. The film is a clinical study of the causes of violence, both psychological and social, but never seems preachy, only sometimes cruel.
As Diment introduces the characters, each one appears to hide a sinister past beneath an apparently meek personality. The steely Doctora Irina is an icy, curt woman who tells Carla it’s too late to abort, but then offers her a tempting solution to go full term and give up the baby to a wealthy couple seeking to adopt, something we know occurred with alarming frequency in Argentina at the time. As in the Oscar-winning Official Story by Luis Puenzo, the adoptive parents have their own secrets to hide. Carla moves in with Irina and sets in motion a series of codependent relationships.
Only Dr. Irina seems to be in complete control, but that changes as the secondary characters grow more menacing. Carla, the pregnant girl, grows from submissive victim to accomplice, then perpetrator. Others make the reverse journey in unexpected ways. The two main character arcs require convincing acting, and both Anganuzzi and Berthet deliver. Dr. Irina writes everything down in her diaries, and we register the detached composure in her carefully timed voiceovers that explain the rationale behind her work. A psychologist is called in to assist the self-harming Carla, and he explains the early childhood “Attachment Theory,” which provides a clue to the film’s title. But eventually he, too, must pay the price for his sadistic arrogance. There are some echoes of Clouzot’s 1955 Diabolique, but here any veiled sexual hints are fully exposed. The dysfunction is taken to the extreme, not without some oblique tinges of humor.
The film’s visual architecture is structured by cinematographer Claudio Beiza, who uses rigorous black and white, close-up angles and overhead perspectives to explore characters trapped in a middle-class, mid-century house full of mirrors and iron grills. Halfway through the movie there is a dramatic switch to color at a crucial plot point, and as the third act develops, one is almost sorry to abandon the sharp contrasts and subtle greys for the brighter palette.
Period pop songs punctuate the action as an ironic undertone that makes the silent scenes eerier, as in the Psycho-style close-up of a screaming woman. Enthusiasts of the horror genre will find plenty to dissect in this unapologetic portrait of a repressive era. It is one that the world has not quite overcome, despite the Argentinean Congress recently legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage.
Director, Screenplay: Valentin Javier Diment
Cast: Jimena Anganuzzi, Lola Berthet, German de Silva, Marcela Guerty, Marta Haller, Andra Nussenbaum
Producers: Valentin Javier Diment, Vanesa Pagani
Cinematography: Claudio Beiza
Production design: Federico Mayol
Editing: Martin Blousson, Valentin Javier Diment
Music: Gustavo Pomeranec
Sound: Adrian Rodriguez, Maria Meui Canobra, Sebastian Gonzalez
Production companies: Pelicula V (Argentina)
World sales: Habanero Film Sales
Venue: Guadalajara Film Festival (Premio Maguey)
In Spanish
102 minutes
