Artigo Revisado por pares

Returning to and from the Maternal Rural Space: Traumatic Memory, Late Modernity and Nostalgic Utopia in Almodóvar's Volver

2011; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 88; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3828/bhs.2011.11

ISSN

1478-3398

Autores

Julián Daniel Gutiérrez‐Albilla,

Tópico(s)

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

Resumo

This article argues that Almodovar's Volver (2006) confronts and 'works through' personal and collective traumas that return to haunt the present. The film thus functions as a powerful mode of witnessing. In Volver, the present and history have to be understood as undergoing a traumatic encounter. In addition, I propose that the film attempts to recuperate a utopian rural space as an alternative to the discontents produced by the dominant patriarchal and late- modern historical paradigm. However, such a utopian recuperation may imply a nostalgic operation. I attempt to disassociate nostalgia from its reactionary connotations in order to propose that the film functions as a reflection on the incorporation of memory into the present without disavowing longing or the contradictions of late modernity. I also suggest that the film proposes an alternative transgenerational and heterosocial concept of community. Finally, Volver allows us to think of the film medium as articulating a notion of history based on th...

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