Sounds of absence: Aurality and silence in Chile’s Mi vida con Carlos/My Life with Carlos (2010) and El eco de las canciones/The Echo of the Songs (2010)

This article analyses the role of silence, sound and voice in two Chilean documentaries, Mi vida con Carlos/My Life with Carlos directed in 2010 by Germán Berger-Hertz and El eco de las canciones/The Echo of Songs in 2010 by Antonia Rossi, as examples of ethically engaged cinema that move the spectator to contemplate dictatorship and post-dictatorship from the perspective of the children of exile. In particular, natural soundscapes, silences, voice-overs and diegetic sounds and music from official media clips and found footage simultaneously signal presence and absence as related to the violence of the dictatorship and its lingering marks in the present. Building on the previous generation’s publication of literary testimonios, the aural features of both films move the audience to question discursive constructions and ultimately create an embodied viewing experience that asks the viewer to recognize the experience of other subjects and to be attune to on-going injustices.