`CAUTIVA' A DULL TAKE ON INTERESTING TOPIC.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

`Cautiva'' is another Argentinian drama about the fallout from the Dirty War, that period in the 1970s and '80s when the ruling military junta kidnapped, tortured and murdered citizens at will.

Many great stories have been told about The Disappeared, the victims whose fates weren't learned for years afterward, if ever. And at least one great movie, the Oscar-winning ``The Official Story,'' has been built around a child of The Disappeared. But that film focused on an adoptive mother discovering her daughter's terrible provenance. ``Cautiva'' comes from the opposite point of view: It's about a teenage girl whose true past is dropped upon her like a bomb.

The movie, written and directed by Gaston Biraben, is sensitive and deliberate, and fully comprehends what such a shattering revelation would do to an otherwise happy young girl. It's also dramatically turgid, and perhaps depends too much on audiences being as shocked by its every new disclosure as its uncomprehending heroine is.

Young Barbara Lombardo proves herself a natural film actor -- she instinctively knows just how much emotion to give the camera, in a role that could easily have devolved into sustained hysteria -- as Cristina Quadri (or so she thinks). Doted on by her retired cop (uh oh) father (Osvaldo Santoro) and loving mom (Silvia Bayle), Cristina refuses to believe it when a judge (Hugo Arana) summons her to his chambers and introduces her to Elisa (the late Susana Campos), a grandmother she never knew she had.

Gradually -- too gradually -- the truth about the girl's past emerges, and she ricochets between denial and acceptance. Her adoptive parents choose obfuscation, which is pretty cruel when you think about it, but their love for her never really comes into question.

Matters finally liven up, if you can call it that, in the third act. Biraben somehow manages to stage a crucial conversation between two showering girls, and flashbacks to a heartbreaking birth can't help but stir tears.

At every step, ``Cautiva'' is a noble, thoughtful effort. Too bad it's so often a dull one.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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CAUTIVA - Two and one half stars

(Not rated: nudity, language, graphic childbirth)

Starring: Barbara Lombardo, Susana Campos, Osvaldo Santoro, Silvia Bayle, Mercedes Funes.

Director: Gaston Biraben.

Running time: 1 hr. 53 min.

In a nutshell: Argentinian teenager finds out she was adopted when her real parents were disappeared. Interesting story, tediously presented. In Spanish with English subtitles.

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Cristina Quadri (Barbara Lombardo) has no idea she was adopted and that her birth parents disappeared in Argentina's Dirty War -- until she is summoned to the chambers of a judge (Hugo Arana) and introduced to the grandmother she never knew in ``Cautiva.''