ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the women who refused complicity with the great 'disappearing act' of the Argentine state. In exploring the ways the Madres managed to sustain and entrench their loved ones in the public imagination, the chapter draws upon Argentine films as instances where the work of transforming the desaparecidos from monstrosities of fear to those worthy of remembrance continued. A disappearing body performs one task: to put on display the conjuror's artistry in playing with words, refracting light and confusing the senses. The disappearances transformed into spectres of horror, representatives of a percepticide of which anyone could become a part. It was the courageous actions of the Madres and Abuelas that invited the nation to be visited by spectres as beautiful in death, full members of that community once again. When the death is outside the bounds of the state's sanctions, as occurs in Lyotard's example with criminals, the beautiful death and the possibility of memorialisation are refused.
