In 1973, the year the military abdicated and Juan Perón returned as President after an 18-year exile, Leonardo Favio filmed the story of a legendary gaucho, Juan Moreira. In doing so, he entered into an historical debate regarding Argentina's fate-presented in the mid-19th century as a choice between barbarism and civilization, but today recast as a choice between nationalism and colonization. Favio's portrayal of the gaucho, perhaps Argentina's most representative figure, as an outlaw in his own country, heroic in his conflict with landowners and the powers that be, spoke to contemporary audiences of the need to preserve Argentine culture from destruction by foreign interests. His lush, operatic style and episodic structure, deliberately in contrast with conventional Hollywood narratives, underscored his point. Juan Moreira's struggle begins when a cattle rancher refuses to pay him for his work. "God is forgetful," he laments, and attempts to direct God's eye to the plight of the powerless. His story is beautifully choreographed in bold reds, a history, written in blood, of a man who became a myth. Kathy Geritz