If I Should Die Before I Wake

Argentine Noir on the Criterion Channel

Childhood is a landscape of hidden, deep mineshafts in my nightmares and memories. A fictional film about my psyche was made in 1952 (actually, two years before my birth). If I Should Die Before I Wake (Si muero antes de despertar) is based on a narrative by the American Cornell Woolrich, interpreted by the Argentinian Carlos Hugo Christensen. The film displays the arrogance of youth but also its vulnerabilities. What child hasn’t tried to communicate with an adult and failed to do so?

Watching this film about a schoolboy’s point-of-view of a child murderer as it takes place reminded me of my experience with Gym teachers in my Junior High School who kept me apart from the other students and placed me in the shower, naked, of course, as they watched and called me a fag. I remember discussing this with the grown-ups, but nothing came of it. It is like nothing happened, and I should forget about it. I didn’t forget, but it didn’t change my life either. Thinking back, I remember this one fellow student, who was a total jock, and it seemed the gym teacher took a special interest in him. This fellow student was in tears for not doing well in a school race. I remember the Coach being very supportive and hugging him. The thoughts that were running through my head at the time, is why am I called a fag in a shower surrounded by the Gym teachers, yet here is one of the teachers, hugging and supporting this jock that failed?

Kids like fairness or be treated equally by the grown-ups as much as possible. The problem arises when an adult doesn’t fully listen to the child when he is in distress. Or that the adult chooses not to believe the youngster. If I Should Die Before I Wake is very much about a child’s fears in a landscape that is hostile toward them. The film’s director, Carlos Hugo Christensen (December 15, 1914 – November 30, 1999), had a knack for understanding a young one’s anxiety and trauma. The film feels very much like a companion piece to Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter but told through the eyes of a young, irascible boy who buried his trauma of losing a fellow female student to a psychotic child killer. A secret among adults is one thing, but a secret between two children is on another plane. A year or so later, it seems that the narrative will repeat unless that boy can save his other little friend from the clutches of the pedophile/killer.

This film and the other one I have seen by Christensen, Never Open That Door, also based on two short stories by Cornell Woolrich, is very good, but If I Should Die… is a masterpiece. The film touches on Freudian imagery and popular European Fairy Tales that warn or expose children to danger. It’s interesting to note that at the time this film was made and released, Argentina was under the control of President Juan Domingo Perón, a controversial figure in that country’s history and culture. Keep in mind that my exposure to Perón is through the film and stage show Evita, so my ignorance is as large as the Pacific Ocean here. It seems he was a dictator, but he put a razor-sharp focus on the working and middle class and a policy of being independent from other countries as much as possible. I sense that a subtext has been running through the cinema of Argentina during these years. Also, Christensen exiled himself from Argentina due to Perón's rule and lived and worked in Brazil.

As with many fellow citizens, these times are challenging on many levels. Criterion Channel assembled a series of Argentine Noir films as part of its programming. I have seen every movie in the series except one, and I have to say it’s a huge treat to see these works. I can’t say that they remove oneself from the disasters around me, but art is made not for escaping (although it does serve that purpose at times) but to reinforce one’s character and the ability to look into the dark hole.