To the casual observer, the Argentine El Secuestador (The Kidnapper) seems to wallow in sordidness for its own sake. The characters are all dirt-poor, and their surroundings relentlessly filthy. The "hero" and "heroine" spend most of their time consummating their romance, most memorably (and audaciously) during a consensual-rape scene in a mortuary. And in another scene, a huge pig swallows the corpse of a baby. The point of El Secuestador seems to be to show the horrible consequences of grinding poverty, and to expose the hypocrisy of the rotten-to-the-core Establishment in dealing with that poverty. Director Leopoldo Torre-Nillson, here as elsewhere, is a superb visual stylist; the more sensitive viewer, however, may not be able to watch that style unfold for more than a few minutes at a time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide Leopoldo Torre Nilsson (1924-1978) is one of the more well-known and admired Argentine directors in international the cinematographic circuits, and in his own country it has not needed the tributes either: numerous books have been dedicated to him, like writings by Fernando Rock, Mónica Martin or one recent compilation of tests coordinated by Maria of the Carmen Vieites.
