The Politics of the Family: Psychoanalysis and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Argentine Documentary Cinema

Abstract

The subjective documentary genre emerged in the context of the “subjective turn” in Argentina (Sarlo 2005), when testimony became the main instrument to mobilise memory. In these films, the narrative of truth is driven by a subjective identity rather than an objective observer, focussing on introspective and private narratives rather than social and political realities. These documentaries have largely been regarded as less politically relevant than their predecessors. This paper seeks to challenge this dominant perspective by theorising the links between the political and the affective in four recent works: La TV y yo (2002) and Fotografías (2006), by Andrés Di Tella, Familia tipo (2009) by Cecilia Priego, and Madres con ruedas (2006) by Mónica Chirife and Mario Piazza. These films explore the identity of the director in relation to the family through narratives that are clearly influenced by psychoanalytic discourses. Pursuing the implications of the link between psychoanalysis and neoliberalism, this paper seeks to theorise the exploration of the self in relation to the family. The aim is to reconceptualise the intimate as political, ultimately understanding the production of subjectivity in these films as closely intertwined with the experience of neoliberalism.

Keywords:

• Family
• politics
• subjective
• cinema
• documentary
• psychoanalysis
• neoliberalism
• post-dictatorship
• Argentina

Notes

Acknowledgements

I would like to warmly thank my supervisor, Dr Joanna Page, for her guidance and comments while preparing this piece.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 All translations of filmography and bibliography in Spanish are my own.

2 This study very much situates itself in a stream of publications that also follow this aim. The Politics of Affect and Emotion in Contemporary Latin American Cinema by Laura Podalsky has sought to analyse “the range and complexity of the socio-political work performed by film’s affective appeals”, thereby locating the political in the personal (2011, 20). Exploring both New Latin American Cinema – including the seminal work The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) – as well as contemporary fiction and documentary productions, she challenges the consensus about the latter’s lack of political relevance by analysing continuities in how these films mobilise affect. While she situates her study in Deleuzian theories of affect and theories of transnational modernity, the analyses are not sufficiently theorised as they are grounded predominantly on formal readings of the films. Exploring specifically the Argentine context in Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema, Joanna Page relies on a rich interdisciplinary framework to theorise a bridge between the public and private spheres, by exploring how cinema “has registered, and indeed helped to construct, certain modes of subjectivity relating to Argentina’s experience of capitalism, neoliberalism, and economic crisis” (Page 2009, 3). Though similar in aim to this study, her analysis focuses predominantly on fiction film.

3 However, it should be noted that the development of the discipline in Argentina has been strongly influenced by the reception of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, and Jacques Lacan alike.

4 The possibility of combining psychoanalytic and Foucauldian approaches is not, however, an unexplored terrain. Most prominently, such research has been carried out in cultural and critical theory (e.g. Groves and Galaty 1986; Whitebook 1999; Hook 2010; Cook 2014), and more recently in political theory (e.g. Luxon 2013; Luxon and Huffer 2016). However, it remains a fairly uncharted method in the study of cinema.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erika Teichert

Erika Teichert is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is a doctoral candidate at the Centre of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge, funded by the Cambridge International Trust and Newnham College. She is also the recipient of the Trinity-MCSC Honorary Scholarship. Her research explores the intersection between art and politics in contemporary Argentine culture. Currently she is exploring the mobilisation of photography in human rights activism. She holds a BA in History of Art from University College London and an MPhil in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge.