{"title":"How does a film remember? Cinematic memory as a living constellation in El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd","authors":"Niina Oisalo","doi":"10.1080/20004214.2022.2040153","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The film El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd (2014), directed by the Argentinean-Swedish duo Alejo Moguillansky and Fia-Stina Sandlund, presents clashing storylines, histories, merged film genres and conflicting aspirations within a transnational film production set in Argentina. It stages a performance founded on real circumstances, where two filmmakers (Moguillansky and Sandlund) begin working on a biopic based on the life of Victoria Benedictsson, a 19th-century Swedish feminist writer, but then, partly in secrecy, the main character changes to her contemporary, Leandro N. Alem, an Argentinean revolutionary politician, while all gets tangled up in a fictional story of a treasure hunt. The film crosses boundaries between documentary and fiction with its maze of rogues, tricksters, and unreliable narrators, opening up stories within stories. In the performance of the documentary filmmaking process, there is a constant struggle over memory: whose (hi)story gets to be told and from what angle. In this article, cinematic memory in El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd is delineated through the performative gestures of reenactment and voice-over narration as aesthetic strategies that promote a non-linear, multidirectional perception of remembering. I suggest that the film offers an alternative way to approach cinematic memory, not attaching the act of remembering to an individual, a group or a nation, but to the film form itself. The film engenders cinematic memory as a living constellation, where diverse historical temporalities exist simultaneously and interact freely. In the film, cinematic memory is constantly being created and recreated in the here and now.","PeriodicalId":43229,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aesthetics & Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Aesthetics & Culture","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2022.2040153","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"CULTURAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT The film El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd (2014), directed by the Argentinean-Swedish duo Alejo Moguillansky and Fia-Stina Sandlund, presents clashing storylines, histories, merged film genres and conflicting aspirations within a transnational film production set in Argentina. It stages a performance founded on real circumstances, where two filmmakers (Moguillansky and Sandlund) begin working on a biopic based on the life of Victoria Benedictsson, a 19th-century Swedish feminist writer, but then, partly in secrecy, the main character changes to her contemporary, Leandro N. Alem, an Argentinean revolutionary politician, while all gets tangled up in a fictional story of a treasure hunt. The film crosses boundaries between documentary and fiction with its maze of rogues, tricksters, and unreliable narrators, opening up stories within stories. In the performance of the documentary filmmaking process, there is a constant struggle over memory: whose (hi)story gets to be told and from what angle. In this article, cinematic memory in El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd is delineated through the performative gestures of reenactment and voice-over narration as aesthetic strategies that promote a non-linear, multidirectional perception of remembering. I suggest that the film offers an alternative way to approach cinematic memory, not attaching the act of remembering to an individual, a group or a nation, but to the film form itself. The film engenders cinematic memory as a living constellation, where diverse historical temporalities exist simultaneously and interact freely. In the film, cinematic memory is constantly being created and recreated in the here and now.
摘要:电影《El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd》(2014)由阿根廷-瑞典二人组Alejo Moguillansky和Fia Stina Sandlund执导,在一部以阿根廷为背景的跨国电影制作中,呈现了冲突的故事情节、历史、融合的电影类型和相互冲突的愿望。它上演了一场基于真实环境的表演,两位电影制作人(莫吉兰斯基和桑德伦德)开始根据19世纪瑞典女权主义作家维多利亚·贝内迪克森的生活拍摄传记电影,但后来,在一定程度上是秘密的,主角换成了她的同时代人,阿根廷革命政治家莱安德罗·N·阿莱姆,而所有的一切都被卷入了一个关于寻宝的虚构故事中。这部电影跨越了纪录片和小说的界限,充斥着无赖、骗子和不可靠的叙述者,在故事中打开了故事。在纪录片制作过程中,人们一直在为记忆而斗争:谁的故事要讲,从什么角度讲。在这篇文章中,《El escarabajo de oro o Victorias Hämnd》中的电影记忆是通过重演的表演手势和画外音叙事来描绘的,这是一种促进非线性、多向记忆感知的美学策略。我认为,这部电影提供了一种处理电影记忆的替代方式,不是将记忆行为与个人、群体或国家联系在一起,而是与电影形式本身联系在一起。这部电影将电影记忆作为一个活生生的星座,不同的历史时间同时存在并自由互动。在电影中,电影记忆不断地在此时此地被创造和重现。