Camouflage

“I always get scared passing by that place, seeing the guards,” says the woman who accompanies writer Félix Bruzzone, the protagonist of Camouflage, on a walk through the beautiful nature at the partially overgrown Argentinian army base Campo de Mayo. In 1976, she witnessed the disappearance of Bruzzone’s mother, an opponent of the dictatorship. It was not until 30 years later that Bruzzone discovered that his mother had died in one of the secret detention centers and torture chambers of Campo de Mayo. His mind will never again be free of this place.

It is not the first time that Jonathan Perel (Corporate Accountability, 2020) has dealt with this sinister past. Now he follows Bruzzone as he talks to people who live near Campo de Mayo, from nature lovers to an elderly woman who was once imprisoned there and now erects memorials. At one point they meet soldiers. Personal memories evoke confusing feelings.

Apparently casually, but captured with great precision, the image emerges of a present resting on the layers of a cruel past. Meanwhile, Bruzzone runs his daily laps through this emotionally charged landscape. His bare feet on the hard asphalt create a striking image.