Dependency Theory and the Aesthetics of Contrast in Fernando Solanas's La hora de los hornos and Memoria del saqueo

Abstract

This paper is a comparative analysis of two key documentaries by Fernando Solanas: La hora de los hornos / The Hour of the Furnaces (1966–68) and Memoria del saqueo / Social Genocide (2003). It argues that Solanas produces documentaries when the representative link that ties the political representatives to the represented (the people) is suspended or breaks down, as experienced during the times of the proscription of Peronism (1955–73) and in the more recent crisis of representation in Argentine institutional politics (1989–2001). The comparison follows two axes: political arguments and the aesthetics of contrast. Regarding the first criterion, the paper highlights the current persistence, in Solanas's political argumentation, of externalist-mechanistic versions of dependency theory of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In relation to the aesthetics of contrast, it analyses the stark oppositions in Solanas's documentaries as a visual rhetoric which can be read as an essentialist false-bottom economy that opposes 'appearance' to 'reality'. The article concludes that these political and aesthetic polarizations are essentializing and literalizing discursive strategies that denounce the excesses of political representation from an unmediated and transparent site of full popular presence. Within such strategies, there is no room for the constitutive opacity intrinsic to representation and articulatory politics.

This paper is a comparative analysis of two key documentaries by Fernando Solanas: La hora de los hornos / The Hour of the Furnaces (1966–68) and Memoria del saqueo / Social Genocide (2003). It argues that Solanas produces documentaries when the representative link that ties the political representatives to the represented (the people) is suspended or breaks down, as experienced during the times of the proscription of Peronism (1955–73) and in the more recent crisis of representation in Argentine institutional politics (1989–2001). The comparison follows two axes: political arguments and the aesthetics of contrast. Regarding the first criterion, the paper highlights the current persistence, in Solanas's political argumentation, of externalist-mechanistic versions of dependency theory of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In relation to the aesthetics of contrast, it analyses the stark oppositions in Solanas's documentaries as a visual rhetoric which can be read as an essentialist false-bottom economy that opposes 'appearance' to 'reality'. The article concludes that these political and aesthetic polarizations are essentializing and literalizing discursive strategies that denounce the excesses of political representation from an unmediated and transparent site of full popular presence. Within such strategies, there is no room for the constitutive opacity intrinsic to representation and articulatory politics.

Este artículo es un análisis comparativo de dos documentales clave de Fernando Solanas: La hora de los hornos (1966–68) Memoria del saqueo (2003). El trabajo argumenta que Solanas produce documentales cuando el lazo representativo que vincula los representantes políticos con los representados (el pueblo) se suspende o se rompe, como ocurrió durante la época de la proscripción del peronismo (1955–73) y en la más reciente crisis de representación de las instituciones políticas argentinas (1989–2001). La comparación se basa en dos criterios: argumentos políticos y estética de contrastes. Con respecto al primer criterio, el artículo subraya la persistencia actual, en la argumentación política de Solanas, de las versiones externalistas y mecanicistas de la teoría de la dependencia de finales de los años sesenta y principios de los setenta. En relación con la estética de contrastes, se analizan las rígidas oposiciones de los documentales de Solanas como una retórica visual que puede ser leída como una economía de doble fondo que opone 'apariencia' a 'realidad'. El artículo concluye que estas polarizaciones estéticas y políticas son estrategias discursivas esencializantes y literalizantes que denuncian los excesos de la representación política desde un lugar transparente y no mediado de presencia popular plena. Dentro de una estrategia semejante, no hay espacio alguno para la opacidad constitutiva de la representación y la articulación políticas.