But will it take off? Peronist Utopias, mythical pasts and crashes in Pulqui, un instante en la patria de la felicidad (Alejandro Fernández Mouján, 2007)

In his documentary Pulqui, un instante en la patria de la felicidad/Pulqui: An Instant in the Land of Happiness (2007a), Alejandro Fernández Mouján follows Argentine plastic artist Daniel Santoro’s attempt to recreate a plane prototype from the Peronist era, the Pulqui II. Santoro’s goal is to build a machine that not only looks the part but that can also fly, however briefly. This article pays attention to the way in which the film – parallel to this rather simple plot – sheds light upon the fascinating phenomenon of Peronism in Argentina. The notion of the archive is central to the film, both as something existing in oral and visual form – quoted at length and freely by Fernández Mouján – and as something that can be reproduced and brought back to life through the actual model of the plane. Through these uses of the archive, the film offers a critique of the socio-economic situation of Argentina post 2001 that might also be read as a criticism of the first Peronist project. In apparently innocuous ways Pulqui … is a critical tool that might allow an attentive viewer to think through some of the key events in contemporary Argentine history.