Gael García Bernal gives a supremely unsettling performance in the new film from visionary Argentinean director Pablo Agüero, which tells the unbelievable true story of the transport of the body of the country’s beloved First Lady Eva Perón.
In 1952 Eva Perón, died of cancer at the age of thirty-three. A renowned embalmer was commissioned by grieving husband Juan Perón to preserve her body for display, and Argentines flocked to be near “Evita.” Three years later, when his government was overthrown by a military coup, Perón fled the country before he could make arrangements for the transportation of his wife’s body. The military junta now in control kidnapped the corpse; so afraid were they of Eva’s symbolic power that they even made it illegal to utter her name. Thus began the two-decade journey of Eva’s body throughout Europe and eventually back to Argentina.
Interspersing his film’s eerie scenes with found footage, Agüero creates a resonant reconstruction of Argentina’s past both bold and original.