Down Came a Blackbird

Tomás Ramírez is a professor who joins a clinic run by Anna Lenke, a Holocaust survivor, psychologist and the clinic’s proprietor, whose patients are also recovering Holocaust and torture victims. Among them is Helen McNulty, a journalist tortured by the death squads of an unidentified Central American country controlled by a dictatorship. In time she grows close to Ramírez, but suspicions are aroused when three men attempt to detain him while he and Helen are on a date. McNulty photographs one of the assailants and sends the picture to a colleague for possible identification. Some time later, during one of the Scotch-fueled late-night conversations between McNulty and Ramírez, he talks about a childhood friend who was an officer in the Army of his home country. Ramírez portrays his friend as a man who followed orders without questioning the morality of them, preferring to go along with his superiors in order to protect his family.

Eventually McNulty’s colleague contacts the person in the picture and arranges a meeting where the man and his two associates identify themselves as police from Ramírez’s home country. They inform McNulty that Ramírez is a fugitive and wanted for torture. Back at the group therapy session in the clinic, McNulty violently confronts Ramírez with this revelation, where he confesses that the childhood friend he spoke of was really himself. Dr. Lenke and the patients escort Ramírez out of the clinic, where the police take him into custody. Before being taken away, Helen asks Ramírez why he came to the clinic, he explains that he wanted to forget his past, and says to her:

you made me forget

As the police car drives away, Anna comforts Helen and they go back inside the clinic so they can continue and eventually finish Helen’s treatment.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 10:45