1981
Volume 19, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2050-4837
  • E-ISSN: 2050-4845

Abstract

This article examines how / (Caetano 2006) uses Gothic horror conventions, particularly the haunted house, to represent the experiences of political prisoners at a clandestine detention centre under the last Argentine dictatorship (1976–83). Though understudied until recently, the Gothic and the haunted house in Latin America have a long cultural history in which their transnational meanings have been adopted, adapted and expanded to suit local contexts, thus evoking both buried pasts and traumatic origins, such as the legacies of colonialism or dictatorial violence, as well as contemporary crises. This article demonstrates how utilizes a Gothic aesthetic to reflect political terror’s effect on space and time, representing the clandestine detention centre as haunted house in order to make legible the oft-suppressed experience of state-sponsored political terror under the Argentine dictatorship. Moreover, the film reveals the Gothic nature of the military government’s strategies to instil fear in the populace. By aiding us to understand the political terror of the past, ’s haunted house also helps its viewers contend with and memorialize its ongoing legacies.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/slac_00067_1
2022-03-01
2023-06-08
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Alvaray, L.. ( 2013;), ‘ Hybridity and genre in transnational Latin American cinemas. ’, Transnational Cinemas, 4:1, pp. 6787.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Anon. ( 1984), Diario La Voz, Archivo de la DD.HH. del Municipio de Morón. , 2 February.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Anon. ( 2020;), ‘ Casa de la memoria y la vida. ’, Municipio de Morón, http://www.moron.gob.ar/nuestra-gestion/derechos-humanos/casa-de-la-memoria-y-la-vida/. Accessed 13 September 2020.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Baer, U.. ( 2000;), ‘ To give memory a place: Contemporary holocaust photography and the landscape tradition. ’, Representations, 69, pp. 3862.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bell, V., and Di Paolantonio, M.. ( 2012;), ‘ El nomos embrujado: Artistas activistas y la política (im)posible de la memoria en la Argentina transicional. ’, in P. A. Calderón. (ed.), Pensar los estudios culturales desde España: Reflexiones fragmentadas, Madrid:: Editorial Verbum;, pp. 10537.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Blanco, M. del Pilar. ( 2012), Ghost-Watching American Modernity: Haunting, Landscape, and the Hemispheric Imagination, New York:: Fordham University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Brescia, P.. ( 2009;), ‘ Crónica de una fuga. ’, Chasqui, 38:2, pp. 23435.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Caetano, I.. ( 2006), Crónica de una fuga, Argentina:: 20th Century Fox, Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA) and K&S Films;.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Cedeño Rojas, M.. ( 2015;), ‘ Estética y estrategias narrativas del cine de terror y el thriller en Crónica de una fuga de Adrián Caetano. ’, HeLix: Dossiers zur romanischen Literaturwissenschaft, 7, pp. 4970.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. CONADEP (Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas) ( 1984;), ‘ Mansión Seré/Quinta de Seré/Atila (Bs.As.) (LRD). ’, Nunca Más: Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas , http://www.desaparecidos.org/nuncamas/web/ccd/m/msonsere.htm. Accessed 13 September 2020.
  11. Derrida, J.. ( 1994), Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, London:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Dillon, A.. ( 2019;), ‘ Tamburrini por Caetano: Del testimonio al film de terror. ’, Ética y Cine Journal, 9:1, pp. 3747.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Fabri, S.. ( 2019;), ‘ Reflexiones sobre la Mansión Seré como Centro Clandestino de Detención y su posterior desarticulación (1977–1986). ’, Anuario IEHS, 34:1, pp. 16793.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Gordon, A.. ( 2008), Ghostly Matters, Haunting and the Sociological Imagination, Minneapolis, MN:: University of Minnesota Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Hitchcock, A.. ( 1960), Psycho, USA:: Shamley Productions;.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Kubrick, S.. ( 1980), The Shining, USA:: Warner Bros;.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Mandolessi, S.. ( 2014;), ‘ Haunted houses, horror literature and the space of memory in post-dictatorship Argentine literature. ’, in E. Schindel, and P. Colombo. (eds), Space and the Memories of Violence: Landscapes of Erasure, Disappearance and Exception, Basingstoke:: Palgrave Macmillan;, pp. 15061.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Mulvey-Roberts, M.. (ed.) ( 1998), The Handbook to Gothic Literature, New York:: New York University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Navitski, R.. ( 2012;), ‘ The last heist revisited: Reimagining Hollywood genre in contemporary Argentine crime film. ’, Screen, 53:4, pp. 35980.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Pous, F.. ( 2015;), ‘ Política de una fuga: Memoria y subjetivación política en la representación cinematográfica del poder desaparecedor en Argentina. ’, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, 39:3, pp. 67393.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Resnais, A.. ( 1955), Night and Fog/Nuit et brouillard, France:: Argos Films;.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Risner, J.. ( 2018), Blood Circuits: Contemporary Argentine Horror Cinema, New York:: State University of New York Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. San Julián, D.. ( 2014;), ‘ La construcción de un lugar de memoria en la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Mansión Seré, Morón, 1983–2007. ’, Trabajos y Comunicaciones, 40, pp. 114, https://www.trabajosycomunicaciones.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/search/authors/view?firstName=Dolores&middleName=&lastName=San%20Juli%C3%A1n&affiliation=Instituto%20de%20Geograf%C3%ADa%2C%20Facultad%20de%20Filosof%C3%ADa%20y%20Letras%2C%20Universidad%20de%20Buenos%20Aires&country=Argentina. Accessed 13 September 2020.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Schwarzböck, S.. ( 2007), Estudio crítico sobre Crónica de una fuga: Entrevista a Israel Adrián Caetano, Buenos Aires:: Picnic Editorial;.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Nación ( 2015;), ‘ Anexo V: Listado de centros clandestinos de detención y otros lugares de reclusión ilegal del terrorismo de Estado en la Argentina entre 1974 y 1983. ’, Informe de Investigación sobre Víctimas de Desaparición Forzada y Asesinato, Registro Unificado de Víctimas del Terrorismo de Estado, Ministerio de Justicia y Derechos Humanos , November, http://www.jus.gob.ar/media/3122963/6._anexo_v___listado_de_ccd.pdf. Accessed 13 September 2020.
  26. Shaw, D.. ( 2007;), ‘ Playing Hollywood at its own game? Bielenski’s Nueve reinas. ’, in D. Shaw. (ed.), Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Breaking into the Global Market, Lanham, MD:: Rowman and Littlefield;, pp. 6785.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Tamburrini, C.. ( 2002), Pase libre: La fuga de la Mansión Seré, Buenos Aires:: Ediciones Continente;.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Taylor, D.. ( 1997), Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’, Durham, NC:: Duke University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Tierney, D.. ( 2018;), ‘ Juan José Capanella: Historical memory and accountability in El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes 2009). ’, in New Transnationalisms in Contemporary Latin American Cinema, Edinburgh:: Edinburgh University Press;, pp. 14359.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Colaneri, Laura. ( 2022;), ‘ Gothic horror and dictatorship in Latin American film: The detention centre as a haunted house in Crónica de una fuga/Chronicle of an Escape (Caetano 2006). ’, Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas, 19:1, pp. 5572, https://doi.org/10.1386/slac_00067_1
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/slac_00067_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/slac_00067_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error