IMAGINACIÓN MARINA Y ARCHIPÉLICA DE RAÚL RUIZ: Les trois couronnes du matelot (1983)

Raul Ruiz has long been considered the most important among Chilean film directors. Central to his artistic biography was his childhood in the Chiloe archipelago and the exile in Paris during the Pinochet regime. He produced more than 100 films in both Chile and France and this article characterizes an archipelagic aesthetics comprised of the director's biography and his cinematic thought to analyze his representation of the sea in Les trois couronnes du matelot (1983). Following Gaston Bachelard's sense of the relationship of water to human dreams and subconscious desire, the article advances the argument that the sea in Ruiz's film provided him a spiritual connection to his Chilean homeland, despite the separation of exile.