Aristarain was born in Buenos Aires. After leaving Argentina, he started working as assistant director in the Arcente cinema, and then in Europe during his short exile for Mario Camus, Giorgio Stegani and Lewis Gilbert before returning to Argentina in 1974, following the death of Argentine president Juan Perón. His first 3 films did not receive favorable reviews, but in 1981 "Tiempo de revancha" received both critical acclaim and public success. Released in the midst of the so-called Guerra Sucia ("Dirty War") when Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship, the film had strong political undercurrents but faced few problems from censors. As Aristarain would later explain, he initially included long, unnecessary sex scenes in the film, "so the censors took five days and questioned things—not politics or ideology but sex. All I had to do was cut a few frames at the end of some scenes, like one of a strip tease. It doesn't hurt the scenes—especially if you made them longer than they should have been."