Eva Doesn't Sleep

The most interesting moments in this fictional feature film actually hail from archival footage of 20th-century history, scenes that are meant to fill the gaps in this weird tale. The historical images capture Argentina during the days of Juan Perón's three terms as president, with a special accent on his second wife Eva “Evita” Perón's special relationship with her country in the years prior to her death from cancer in 1952. The impressive sight of hundreds of thousands of Argentineans gathered in the streets to hear her messages deploring plutocrats and would-be dictators certainly bears out why she was called the “spiritual leader” of her people. But all of that is backdrop to an enigmatic take on the fact-based story of Evita's corpse vanishing from Argentina for 16 years, following Juan's death in 1974. Filmmaker Pablo Agüero serves up a shadowy version of what might have (or possibly did) happen, and how a secretive network of military figures who hated Evita—including Admiral Emilio Massera (Gael García Bernal)—could not dispose of her remains, as if her inextinguishable memory was synonymous with her corpse. A muddled semi-historical inquiry that will baffle many viewers unfamiliar with Argentinean history, this is not recommended. (T. Keogh)