A vital recent chapter of Argentine women’s history is conventionally but stirringly told in “Belén,” a polished but honestly felt sophomore feature from actor-director Dolores Fonzi. The true-life story of a landmark court case that contributed toward Argentina’s eventual legalization of abortion in 2020, Fonzi’s film fits intricate, nationally specific factual material into a universally crowdpleasing courtroom-drama mold — in a manner not dissimilar from Santiago Mitre’s Oscar-nominated “Argentina, 1985,” with which it shares a global distributor in Amazon Prime Video. “Belén,” too, has been selected as the Argentina’s international Oscar submission; whether or not it’s nominated, it could well lead to higher-profile assignments for its audience-minded helmer.
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Fonzi gives herself the leading role of Soledad Deza, a crusading lawyer inclined toward pro-bono work for the victimized and disempowered — a taxing, often thankless job that she sometimes chaotically balances with her role as a dedicated wife and mother. Dramatically, however, the film’s heaviest lifting is done by Camila Pláate as Deza’s egregiously mistreated client Julieta (dubbed Belén to protect her identity when her case becomes a cause célèbre), who, in 2014, is charged with murder and incarcerated after suffering a painful miscarriage at a regional hospital.
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This incident is depicted in an urgent, claustrophobic prologue, with Javier Juliá’s jittery camera and Andrés Pepe Estrada’s restless editing conveying the young woman’s in-the-moment disorientation as she’s admitted to the hospital with severe stomach pains, and is progressively stripped of control — first of her body and then of her rights. Her pleas that she didn’t even know she was pregnant and had no intention of aborting the fetus fall on deaf ears as police officers crash the scene, overriding the authority of the medical staff and handcuffing Julieta while she’s still on the operating table. It’s a necessarily tough sequence to watch, played with feverish emotional intensity by the remarkable Pláate — recipient of the supporting performance prize at San Sebastián, where the film had its international premiere.
Nothing that ensues in “Belén” is quite as grueling as this opening, as the film then switches to a more comfortingly expected procedural gear. From here, the focus shifts to Deza, as she takes the case from Beatriz (Julieta Cardinali, broadly villainous down to her ill-fitting wig), the callously indifferent public defender whose negligence effectively lands the innocent Julieta an eight-year prison sentence. From the off, Deza identifies any number of gaps and inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case against her client, and even evidence of a systemic conspiracy against her.
Probing them with the steadfast assistance of her fellow counsel and best friend Barbara (Laura Paredes, also Fonzi’s co-writer), it’s easy enough for Deza to build a compelling appeal. Harder is the blowback she experiences for advocating on the unpopular side of a fraught public debate over abortion — the patriarchal powers that be in the law and media alike are stacked against her, while she and her family receive alarming threats from religious fundamentalists. As both she and the cause power through this opposition, gaining ground as Belén becomes a nationwide mascot for reproductive rights, Fonzi’s film traces a satisfying, spirit-lifting if slightly programmatic arc of women-against-the-system uplift.
Somewhat lost in this development is Julieta’s own perspective. The film sporadically cuts to her languishing fretfully in prison as others take to the streets on her behalf, and Pláate’s wild-eyed, bare-nerved performance poignantly essays the desperation of a young woman losing her best years to layers of institutional corruption. Still, one wishes the script offered a little more access to the victim’s inner life: We’re largely left to imagine her fears for an uncertain future, her grief for an unknown, unborn child and her thoughts on becoming a symbolic figure in the outside world, with another woman’s name to boot. “Belén” might never regain the vivid rage and terror of its opening minutes, but Fonzi’s film ends up carrying viewers on its own wave of pride and upright conviction, ultimately delivering the hope its promises.
