• Home
  • Film Classes
  • Short Films
    • Love is a function of Death
    • usa.DT
    • Banality of Evil
    • 2 Yahoos and a bottle of Rum
    • The Here Between
    • Pale Side of Darkness
    • The Restroom
    • MetA-Romantic
  • Photography
    • 21 Final Candidates for the 7 Wonders of the World >
      • Pyramids of Giza
      • Chichen Itza
      • Machu Picchu
      • Roman Colosseum
      • Neuschwanstein Castle
      • Statue of Liberty
      • Stonehenge
      • Hagia Sophia
      • Acropolis
      • Eiffel Tower
      • Alhambra
      • Christ Redeemer
    • 7 Natural Wonders of the World >
      • Paricutin Volcano
      • Grand Canyon
      • Northern Lights
      • The Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
      • Iguazu Falls
    • Natural Wonders of the U.S.A >
      • The Wave
      • The Racetrack
      • Yellowstone
      • Slot Canyons and more
      • Arches National Park
      • Bryce Canyon
      • Carlsbad Caverns
      • Badlands National Park
      • Canyonlands
    • Abandoned Places
    • Nature +
    • Faces
    • Interesting Places in USA
    • Interesting Places in Europe
  • Film Blog
    • Film Theory >
      • Women in Film Noir
      • Why do we have movie theaters?
      • Film Noir-Movement or Genre
      • How to understand box-office figures
    • Classic Films >
      • Touch of Evil
      • Citizen Kane - Overview
      • Citizen Kane - Firing of Leland
      • Citizen Kane - Declaration of Principles
      • I Am Cuba
      • Grand Illusion
      • Numbers and Language in "A Clockwork Orange"
      • JFK
      • Tout va b!en
      • Rear Window
      • "Vertigo" versus "A Man Escaped"
      • Meaning of 2001: A Space Odyssey
      • The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
      • Network
      • Casablanca
    • Recent Films >
      • "The Matrix," freedom and Alice in Wonderland
      • Sweet and Lowdown
      • Taxi Driver
      • The Weather Underground
      • Lone Star
      • Cotton Club
      • From "Gimme Shelter" to "Spinal Tap"
      • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
      • Requiem for a Dream
      • The Elephant Man
      • Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
      • Natural Born Killers
    • 21 Century >
      • Gravity
      • Blue is the warmest color
      • Spike Lee and the missing link in his "essential films" list
      • Kon-Tiki
      • The Place Beyond the Pines
      • Searching for Sugar Man
      • Killing them Softly
      • Silver Linings Playbook
      • Drive
      • Midnight in Paris
  • Best Films
    • The Best Films Ever Made
    • Best Noir Films
    • Best Neo-Noir Films
    • Best Comedy Films
    • Best Documentary Films
    • Best Western Films
    • Best Animation Films
    • Best Cinematography
    • Best Science-Fiction films
    • Best Screenwriters
    • Amazing Films
    • Best Film Directors
    • Best Experimental Films
    • Film Genres >
      • Gangster Films
      • Western Films
      • Science Fiction (Sci-Fi) Films
      • Woman's Film
      • Comedy Films
      • Nonfiction Films
      • Animated Films
      • Experimental Films
    • The Motion Picture Production Code
    • Film Quotes
  • Orson Welles
    • Rare pictures from "Citizen Kane"
    • Rare pictures from "The Magnificent Ambersons"
    • Rare Orson Welles pictures, awards and drawings
    • Rare pictures from "The Stranger," "Lady from Shanghai," "Hearts of Darkness," "It's all True," "Macbeth," and "Othello"
    • Rare pictures from Orson Welles Magic Show, Radio career and Theater productions
  • Cinema History
  • Contact
ilianFilm
ilianFIlm

Summary of "The Salta Trilogy: The Civilised Barbarism in Lucrecia Martel’s Films" by Pedro Lange-Churion

1/15/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Based on Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s text Facundo: Civilisation and Barbarism, the urban environment is considered civilized and in opposition the rural is associated with the native and barbaric (467). This way of perception defines “the others” and enhances the asymmetrical power paradigm (467). To Lange-Churion, the center stage in Martel’s movies are taken by white female characters. They belong the upper classes, but are located in provinces. Thus the marginalized natives are pushed to the background (468). Another characteristic of Martel’s films is that they do not succumb to the Hollywood recipe of storytelling, but rather rely on “gestures, moods, repeated motifs, incomplete and almost spasmodic dialogues, parallel framing” (469). This approach to filmmaking is intentional by Martel, who dislikes the viewer to be complete immersed in the viewing (470). To her this prevents the viewer from critically examination of her films (470).
Lange-Churion examines the civilization/barbarism in Martel’s film through Foucault’s concept of heterotopia or the abnormal space. He focuses on three of Martel’s films – The Swamp, The Holy Girl and The Headless Woman. In The Swamp the swimming pool is the symbol for the decadence and the recession of the provincial bourgeois family (472). Further, Martel avoids tracking shots to show the enclosed environment the characters are moving through, an idea enhanced by her intentional use of close-ups (472,473). To Lange-Churion, this is especially evident in the first two films from the trilogy, where the spaces become gothic (473). In The Headless Woman, the enclosed spaces are scattered, but they are connected by another enclosure, the car (473). These enclosed spaces are providing the necessary boundary between the upper classes and the barbaric outside environment (474). Moreover, this notion is enhanced by the characters themselves, evident in their superior behavior (474). However, the leading characters actions are getting them into troubles and thus disrupting their bourgeois balance and rendering them the barbaric ones (476). These are the spaces that show the hidden discrimination between the classes. Discrimination is the underlaying current, because if it is exposed then can be confronted and opposed (477). The heterotopic concept is functioning on two levels. First, the people from the civilized caste are spatially separated from the natives or the barbarians. On the other hand though, the civilized rely on the barbaric for their survival and functioning (479). The barbaric/native being the supporting members of the cast are not specifically seen and the cinematic attention is not drawn to them. However, the barbaric/native servants can be heard through their actions – cleaning, cooking, serving, gardening ext. (479,480).

I can argue that this observation is based on other bourgeois perception – elegance demands quietness. The louder people are the less sophisticated they seem. The Swamp, successfully reverse the male/female roles by portraying the female characters as the driving force and the male characters as passive participants.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    People who critique moving pictures fall into 3 general classes:

    1.
    Reviewers - are generally journalists who describe the contents and general tone of a movie, with only incidental emphasis on aesthetic evaluation. 

    2.
    Critics - are also journalists for the most part, but their emphasis is more on evaluation than on mere content description. 

    3.
    Theorists - are usually professional academics, often the authors of books on how movies can be studied on a more philosophical level.

    Author

    I'm a film critic and I like to write about films that are exceptional and stand above the rest. 

    Categories

    All
    2011
    2012
    2013
    2014
    Classic
    Recent
    Theory

    RSS Feed

    "The role of the critic is to help people see what is in the work, what is in it that shouldn't be, what is not in it that could be. He is a good critic if he helps people understand more about the work that they could see for themselves; he is a great critic, if by his understandings and feeling for the work, by his passion, he can excite people so that they want to experience more of the art that is there, waiting to be seized. He is not necessarily bad critic if he makes errors in judgement. He is a bad critic if he does not awaken the curiosity, enlarge the interests and understanding of his audience. The art of the critic is to transmit his knowledge of and enthusiasm for art to others." ( Pauline Kael )
Photography
Film Canon
Contact

All materials Copyright © 2022 ilianFIlm - All rights reserved.
No commercial reproduction, adaptation, distribution or transmission of any part or parts of this website or any
information contained therein by any means whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission.



© 2022 ilianFilm.com All Rights Reserved