María Principito

This routine drama set in Argentina during the 1930s draws parallels between a family patriarch and a political despot who stoops to any corrupt means to increase his power and wealth. The parallels are easy to make because the man is the same in both cases. The grandfather in the family has a rigid, tight-fisted control over his grandchildren, who eventually begin to rebel against his authoritarian and ironically puritanical behavior. At first, there is no real awareness of his opposite, criminal behavior outside the home. But as one of the grandsons begins to mature in his political savvy, the grandfather comes under well-deserved fire at last.