Verónico Cruz

Despite its very evident sincerity, Pereira's feature debut offers a sometimes muddled, wanly liberal response to the human waste incurred during the Falklands War. In a tiny, remote village high in the Argentinian mountains, the uneducated population is barely aware of events in the outside world; only a teacher from the city - whose growing friendship with shepherd boy Veronico forms the core of the film's narrative - seems conscious of the implications of 1976's military coup. True, life in the village changes; but any real political criticism would seem to lie in the character of Veronico's father, whose absentee status may serve to tug the heartstrings in regard to our perception of his son's predicament, but does little to clarify either the mechanisms of Argentine fascism or the war itself. Finally, both strengths and weaknesses are rooted in the film's decidedly poetic humanism; only the most bigoted Brits could find such a well-meaning anti-war movie offensive.