La Guerra Gaucha

The Gaucho War La guerra gaucha is a 1942 Silver Condor award winning Argentine historical drama and epic film directed by Lucas Demare and starring Enrique Muio, Francisco Petrone, ngel Magaa, and Amelia Bence. The films script, written by Homero Manzi and Ulyses Petit de Murat, is based on the novel by Leopoldo Lugones published in 1905. The film premiered in Buenos Aires on November 20, 1942 and is considered by critics of Argentine cinema to be one of the most successful films in history. It won three Silver Condor awards, including Best Film, Best Director Lucas Demare, and Best Adapted Screenplay Ulises Petit de Murat and Homero Manzior, given by the Argentine Film Critics Association at the 1943 Argentine Film Critics Association Awards for the best films and performances of the previous year.

In Salta Province in 1817 during the War of Independence, the irregular forces commanded by General Martn Gemes carry out a guerrilla action against the Spanish army. The commander of a Spanish army contingent, Lieutenant Villarreal, is wounded, captured by the guerrillas, and put under the medical care of Asuncin, the mistress of an estancia. She finds out from his idenfication paper that the Lieutenant, though serving in the Spanish army, was born in Lima. She persuades him of the justice of liberating America from Spain. The patriot forces receive help from the sacristan of a chapel located next to the grounds of the royalist troops. The sacristan fakes loyalty to the king, but during the battles he sends messages to the gaucho guerrillas hiding in the mountains by means of a messenger boy and by ringing of the bell. When the royalists discover this, they attack and burn the chapel and smash the sacristans eyes. Blinded, the sacristan unwittingly guides the royalists to the patriot camp. The royalists then proceed to annihilate the gauchos. In the final sequence, after the battle, the only three surviving characters the badly injured sacristan, an old man, and the lieutenant who has fallen in love with Asuncin and converted to the patriot cause see Gemes arriving troops, which will continue the battle.The film begins with a prologue on screen providing the historical circumstances of the place and time in which the action is placed, and advancing the position of its authors. From 1814 to 1818, Gemes and his gauchos resisted the royalist armies, that systematically ransacked the country from the Alto Peru since the withdrawal of the regular troops. This conflict of small battles was characterized by the heroism of the adversaries. ........

Source: Wikipedia