Vagón fumador: Desire and dissatisfaction in the neo-liberal nocturnal city

This article explores the representation of Buenos Aires during the climax of the Argentine neo-liberal crisis in Vagón fumador/Smokers Only by Chen (2003), through an analysis of the spatial practice of its characters. It is not argued here that the film sets out to capture this crisis. The opposite could be argued: the film – even when attempting to avoid referring to its socio-economic moment – works as an involuntary register of these most critical of times, capturing its context tangentially, in a clear example of the forms in which New Argentine Cinema embarked in the production of meaning in ways that are not necessarily dependent on narrative. Buenos Aires in the film is portrayed as a thoroughly commodified space, deeply embedded in the economic logic of the time, where everything is consumed like a spectacle: neo-liberal space perfected.