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FROM THE FOXHOLE TO THE FIRE

By V.A. MUSETTO

Rating:
March 21, 2007 -- NEARLY a year after being named best feature at Tribeca, Tristan Bauer's "Blessed by Fire" is making its theatrical debut.

The Argentinian export honors the unseen victims of the 1982 Falklands war, those who survived the battlefield only to die years later at their own hands.

It has been estimated that hundreds of veterans on both sides of the war - in which Argentina and Britain battled for 74 days over possession of the windy and barren Falkland Islands, located off the southeast coast of South America - committed suicide after going home.

"Blessed by Fire" opens two decades after the guns fell silent. Esteban (Gaston Pauls) receives a frantic call from the estranged wife of a foxhole buddy, Alberto (Pablo Ribba).

After years of post-war depression, Alberto has tried to kill himself with a "cocktail" of drugs and booze.

Seeing his comatose buddy in a hospital bed, suspended between life and death, Esteban finds his mind wandering back to wartime.

The battlefield sequences unfold with surreal horror, while the human bonding in the foxholes emerges tenderly.

On the downside, Bauer - who makes no pretense about where his heart lies - tacks on a melodramatic coda that lessens the momentum of an otherwise praiseworthy film.

BLESSED BY FIRE In Spanish and English, with subtitles. Running time: 103 minutes. Not rated (war violence). At the Two Boots Pioneer, Avenue A and Third Street, East Village.

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