How nice to see us alive: Memory, trauma and resistance in scripting How Nice to See You Alive (1989, Brazil)

Brazilian director and screenwriter Lúcia Murat, processing her own experience of being arrested and tortured as a former guerrilla fighter against the military dictatorship that ruled her country for 21 years, produces a poignant hybrid of documentary and fiction with How Nice to See You Alive. With eight testimonials of women who were also part of the armed resistance, and a fictional character played by actress Irene Ravache, whose aftermath from experiencing torture borders on paranoia, Murat begs us to remember our own history by discussing memory, trauma and resistance. ‘How did we survive?’ Ravache’s character asks at the beginning of the film, as we are yet to be launched into the memories and traumas endured by each of the women. The narrative structure and devices employed by Murat in the film mirror her own understanding of how we access our memories and how our personal traumas have a way of playing and replaying in our minds. In this chapter, we analyse how the film’s script, structure and devices build up its statement and how it impacted generations to come by crystallizing how a history of repression and torture cannot and should not be forgotten.

Keywords: Lúcia Murat ; memory ; military dictatorship ; resistance ; script ; trauma