Write # words reflecting on how we define torture and how the film portrays or challenges some of our ideas about its relationship to the law and the state.
Torture can be defined as the infliction of pain (physical and/or psychological) for reasons of extortion, control, and/or punishment. The action of torture is often thought to be (and is categorized by law) as extralegal. It is typically ascribed to organized crime groups such as gangs or mafias (as perpetuated by popular media). Still, torture can be state sponsored. This deceptive type of torture can occur under the ideological framework that maintains political authority under the semblance of security.
In the 1999 film Garage Olimpo, torture is carried out by a paramilitary group operating in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the military dictatorship. The protagonist, Maria, an activist against the junta, is abducted and tortured in a secret underground location, Garage Olimpo, filled with other prisoners. The paramilitary group operates under the command of ‘El Tigre’, a military official whose narrative frames the main story. Felix, an employee of el tigre, functions as a disturbing connection of Maria’s past life and her life in Garage Olimpo. He is both a (her) torturer and a past tenant of Maria’s mother’s house. Throughout his interactions and conversations with Maria, it is revealed that he harbors romantic feelings for her. Felix is symbolic of the strange intimacy of torture—a horrific violation of ones psyche (and body in the case of Garage Olimpo).
Felix, as this intermediary figure, represents the normalization and pervasiveness of torture during this era in Buenos Aires. Additionally, Felix challenges notions of torture through his physicality and conduct. His outward appearance would not suggest that he makes a living by torturing people. It is also not expected that he would clock-in for a job of this nature as one would for a 9-5 office job. Torture is reduced to a banal action; Hannah Arendt in Eichmann in Jerusalem calls this “the banality of evil.” Evil has become systematized by government forces; torture loses its ability to be morally evaluated. Torturer is being endorsed and over sought by a military official—someone thought to be a protector. Felix’s job would be considered illegal on paper, but it is enabled by the military dictatorship thus justifying torture as a tool for the advancement of the government.
References
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Penguin Books, 2006.
Garage Olimpo. Directed by Marco Bechis, performances by Antonella Costa and Carlos Echevarría, Wanda Films, 1999.
