The Cinematic Daydream as a Tool of Political Emancipation: Plus-de-Jouir, Aufhebung and the Parallax

Abstract

In this research, we will start by exposing the paradox of ‘surplus enjoyment’ (the Lacanian plus-de-jouir), showing that its parallax structure of lack and excess is also applicable to the phenomenon of (surplus) repression. Linking his concept with the Hegelian Aufhebung, understood as a ‘failed negation of negation’ or a ‘negation of negation’ as failure, we will focus in detail on the central example illustrating our theoretical positions, which is Iciar Bollain’s film Tambien la Lluvia (Even the Rain). In analyzing its narrative structures that address the neocolonial reality, we will tend to approach indirectly, by reading the medium of cinematic narration, the ‘neocolonial question.’