NN

The grief survivors feel for a lost loved one is usually punctuated by closure that helps the bereaved move past sadness, anger and frustration and get on with their lives. For the relatives of the tens of thousands of persons disappeared by dictatorships in countries like Peru, Chile and Argentina during the last decades of the 20th century, that closure of having a body to bury may never come. Such is the case of Graciela (Antoineta Pari, in a spare minimalist performance), a Peruvian widow who becomes convinced that her husband’s is among the bodies recovered by forensic investigators in Héctor Gálvez’s compelling drama. When the government reluctantly sanctions the retrieval of remains of persons murdered during Peru’s war on terrorism of the 1980s and ‘90s, the countryside dig yields remnants of clothing and bones. One by one, the remains are identified and relatives are called in to confirm the find and bury their dead, until there is only one “NN” (non nomine)—an unidentified corpse—left, a male, 35–40 years old. Graciela single-mindedly insists the body is that of her spouse. Team leader Fidel (Paul Vega), agonizes over the final decision to grant her peace of mind or not. Through Graciela’s story, the director explores the vortex of passions that roil Peru when it comes to their disappeareds in an engrossing, expertly paced tale that portrays a range of emotions about how to deal with pain and injustice, and examines whether peace of mind is more important than fact. —Miguel Pendás