Heart-tugging tale in ‘Finding Oscar’

Guatemala’s bloody past

Ryan Suffern stumbled upon an ideal documentary subject when he heard about Oscar Ramirez, a young man in Massachusetts who discovered that, as a child, he was a rare survivor of one of the most horrific massacres of Guatemala’s three-decade long civil war. With the assistance of human rights organizations and the USC Shoah Foundation, together with the blessings of executive producer Steven Spielberg, Suffern set out to tell the disturbing story of Guatemala’s bloody past, knowing that the hook offered by Oscar ensured an irresistible emotional pull even for those with little interest in Central American politics. The result, “Finding Oscar,” is a standard-issue piece of heart-tugging reportage better suited to small screens than art houses.

The structure makes it easy to follow, mixing talking heads with straightforward footage shot in Guatemala and elsewhere that contextualizes the militarization of the country and then focuses on the 1982 massacre in Dos Erres, where the bodies of 162 adults and 67 children were tossed into the village well. Earlier that year, General Efrain Rios Montt seized control of the government, instituting a crackdown on left-wing political opponents that received the blessing of the Reagan administration — when Reagan paid a visit to Guatemala, he praised Rios Montt as a man of “great personal integrity,” much like Trump’s recent declaration that Egypt’s dictator Abdel Fatah al-Sissi has done “a fantastic job.”

In that Cold War era when US policy supported any right-wing coup as long as it suppressed perceived communist threats, strong men like Rios Montt felt they had carte blanche to eliminate enemies in whatever way they saw fit, so under a scorched earth policy, the General’s feared Kaibil forces had impunity to do what was deemed necessary. The entire village of Dos Erres disappeared, but only when Famdegua, an organization of victims’ families, began calling attention to this and other massacres did anyone pay attention. A half-hearted official investigation began after a 1996 peace agreement ended the conflict, yet even then, the government had little interest in pursuing justice.

However, a few dogged citizens like Aura Elena Farfan, Famdegua’s executive director, were determined to find out what happened and hold the perpetrators accountable. Farfan was incredibly lucky in that two members of the Kaibil unit involved in Dos Erres, Fabio Pinzon Jerez and Cesar Ibanez, wanted to talk, and through them she learned not just the stomach-churning details of the massacre, but that two young boys were taken away by soldiers. Here’s where Suffern shifts the documentary into a sort of TV investigation as Farfan, prosecutors, forensic anthropologists, and others search for traces of the two missing children.

Spielberg

By Jay Weissberg

The trail leads from Guatemala to Florida, where former Kaibil soldiers live, and on to Framingham and Winnipeg, for expectedly emotional moments that Suffern builds with teary conviction. There’s even a catharsis of sorts, a bittersweet reunion likely to moisten many eyes. As a story, “Finding Oscar” has all the necessary ingredients for a riveting experience, yet the execution is more earnest than inspiring in all but the most predictable ways (for more profoundly incisive looks at the nightmare of Guatemala’s recent past, it’s best to check out Juan Manuel Sepulveda’s “Lessons for a War” and Pamela Yates’ two docs, “When the Mountains Tremble” and “Granito”).

The visuals are formulaic, though at least that means they don’t sensationalize the unfathomable cruelty of the right-wing dictatorship, when as many as 200,000 civilians were killed. However, Paul Pilot and John Stirratt’s music, with its driving electric guitar, is a dreadful accompaniment to the testimony of survivors speaking of their murdered loved ones.

LOS ANGELES:

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Gael Garcia Bernal is toplining Alonso Ruizpalacios’ second feature, “Museum” (“Museo”).

Not unlike Ruizpalacios’ breakout hit, “Gueros,” “Museo” is a coming-of-age story, this time within a heist-road movie based on real events in the ‘80s. “Museo” recounts the circumstances behind the theft of pre-Hispanic artifacts from Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology and the shocking discovery that the thieves turned out to be two young men from the suburbs, instead of what was assumed to be the work of an international ring of art thieves.

On board as executive producers are Garcia Bernal, Anant Singh and Brian Cox of Distant Horizon and Moises Cosio of Detalle Films. Distant Horizon will handle international sales.

“We established a relationship with Distant Horizon when we collaborated on Ralph Ziman’s “Kite,” Atom Egoyan’s “Remember” and “Un padre no tan padre,” said producer Gerardo Gatica of Panorama Global who estimates that the film will end up costing less than $5 million, but with a higher-than-average budget for a Mexican film.

“Our talks with Gael, who’s an old friend of Alonso’s, began two-and-a-half years ago, but we had to adjust to his schedule,” said Gatica whose coproducers include “Gueros” producer Ramiro Ruiz, Panorama partner Alberto Muffelmann and co-scribe Manuel Alcala whose research on the project began some 10 years ago.

Garcia Bernal and Leonardo Ortizgris (“Gueros”) play the two aimless, misguided young men whose heist made international headlines.

“”Museum” is not a faithful reconstruction of the event, in fact I’ve changed the real characters’ names,” said Ruizpalacios, who is currently in production on the drama.

He added: “I was inspired by the story to make an allegory for young people’s search for identity and meaning in their lives,” he said, a theme he also explored in “Gueros.” The rest of the cast includes Lisa Owen, Simon Russel Beale, Leticia Bredice, Ilse Salas (“Gueros”), Bernardo Velasco and Chile’s Alfredo Castro (“No,” “From Afar”).

“My co-writer Alcala and I were very inspired by ‘Badlands’ where Terrence Malick took a true story and made it his own,” said Ruizpalacios. He has rounded up his loyal “Gueros” team for his sophomore pic, including DP Damian Garcia who is using 35 mm film to lend a closer approximation of the ’80s.