After the military junta took over in the 1970's in Argentina, which was backed in real life by the USA, a teacher in a private school falls for a rebellious student. She never consummates her relationship with him, she only goes as far a briefly touching his hand and smelling his clothes. She's lonely and closed off and she more than tacitly accepts helping the school authorities keep a tight rein on the students, lest they rebel and join the anti government protestors in the streets. In an effort to get promoted and be seen as a teacher who can be trusted, she convinces her superior, who also has a crush on her, that she is on the look out for students smoking in the school. She hides in a restroom stall to spy on her most favored student and while it brings her a few seconds of stolen pleasure it ends up having disastrous consequences for her.
This film,
The Invisible Eye, is a stunning piece of work. It's powerful, taut, and almost impossible to look away from. Julieta Zylberberg as the teacher who is torn between doing her duty to the school, and by extension to the military rulers, and to the boy she imagines she's in love with is fantastic. She closed but yearning, shut but open. She's in most every scene and she's a marvel.
This period of time in South American history, when the USA and the CIA was backing right wing military coups in most all the countries down there in order to impose Milton Friedman style free market style economic systems, is fascinating to me. I'm fascinated by how people lived their lives when so much awful shit was going down around them, so it's no wonder I found this film to be so good. I highly recommend it.
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