Teo Gutiérrez Moreno as Juan (Film Movement)

In his debut feature film, director Benjamín Ávila draws on his own childhood to create a compelling coming of age story, set in Argentina during the Dirty War. Twelve-year-old Juan’s parents are Peronist guerillas, who aim to overthrown the military dictatorship. In the opening of the film,  Juan’s father gets shot at on the street, causing the family to flee to Cuba. Clandestine Childhood’s main story, though, concerns their return to Argentina years later in 1979, living in constant fear of being caught and killed, and Juan’s attempt to navigate the perils of young adolescence under the shadow of his parents’ political activities.

Juan (a convincing Teo Gutiérrez Romero) has just made the journey out of exile back into his home country along with his parents (Natalia Oreiro and César Troncoso) and baby sister. They live with his uncle, Beto (Ernesto Alterio), a loving and gregarious man who becomes very close with Juan throughout the film. They all have changed their names and identities, and Juan, named after President Perón, now must learn to be called Ernesto at school—and get rid of his Cuban accent.

He makes friends with his classmates and even develops a strong crush on the sister of a friend. Though he faces a pretty ordinary adolescence, despite his parents’ activities, problems arise. He’s taken by surprise, for example, when his classmates begin to sing “Happy Birthday” to him on a random day in October—it’s his birthday according to his fake passport. He thus becomes obligated to have his parents throw him a party for his class at his home, where weaponry is hidden in the garage.

During this time, Juan’s grandmother, who has come to visit the family after a long absence, is overwhelmed by her fear that her daughter and her family are in terrible danger. As Juan’s mother, Natalia Oreiro is fascinating, balancing the need to fight for what she believes in with wanting to keep her children safe. The fraught argument she has with her mother about the risks of their cause, which Juan overhears, is one of the film’s most striking moments.

Clandestine Childhood has many of the elements of a typical preteen: Juan’s struggle to fit in, his first love, his incapability of understanding his parents’ choices. Setting this story against this political backdrop, and the fact that it is based on Ávila’s childhood, makes the film stand out. Ávila also utilizes animated line drawings at certain points to emphasize the political violence taking place. It’s an interesting concept, and they are well done, but they occur so infrequently that it interrupts the flow of the drama. The few dream sequences that Juan has throughout, however, are extremely gripping. Subtlety surreal, they allow the audience into Juan’s psyche while being visually striking. Throughout, Clandestine Childhood credibly conveys Juan’s limited view of his parents’ cause. The audience only sees and hears what he does, understanding bits and pieces of what his parents and their comrades are up against.