| Abstrakt: |
This paper explores the visualization and intersection of trauma, male fantasies, and cultural capital in the first four feature-length films of Chilean director Pablo Larraín:Fuga(2006),Tony Manero(2008),Post Mortem(2010), andNo(2012). Larraín’s first feature sketches out these themes in individual and familial terms; the subsequent three, forming what Larraín has called an ‘unintentional trilogy’ of the Pinochet dictatorship, visualize them in a more collective, historical, and political register. Categorizing these films as examples of ‘posttraumatic cinema,’ I demonstrate how Larraín images the fantasy scenarios that structure Chile’s ‘true horror’: namely, the weaponization of male fantasies and of cultural capital – the combination of which induced indelible traumas during the dictatorship. The attendant institutionalization of injustice, impunity, and neoliberalism – which, as Larraín shows, was conserved during the country’s transition to democracy – has limited the possibilities of working through the recurring traumas ever since. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
