Memory and childhood in the melodrama of the Malvinas War: The Children Who Write on the Sky

Abstract

To celebrate the bicentenary of Argentina's Republic in 2010, many films produced that year depicted this country's heroes and episodes of the War of Independence in the 19th century. However, Lo que el tiempo nos dejó (What Time Left Behind), a six-episode television drama series for Canal Telefé, rather chose to depict events of the 20th century, half of which were set during the periods of dictatorship. This article focuses on one of the series' episodes, Adrián Caetano's Los niños que escriben en el cielo (The Children Who Write on the Sky), whose central story takes place against the backdrop of the 1982 war between Argentina and England over the Malvinas (Falklands) islands. In view of placing this programme within the general context of Argentine audiovisual production during recent years, three main ideas are proposed in this analysis. The first is the relationship between memory and childhood, as the story assumes the point of view of a boy who struggles with the dilemma of whether he should reveal a military fraud. Second, the analysis highlights the use of archival documentary footage within the fiction and the resulting hybridisation of the film text. Finally, the article focuses on the function of the movement from social to political undertones in television melodrama.