CONFLICTS, ALTERITIES AND TERRITORIALITIES IN KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO’S CINEMA
Name: PRISCILLA SCHIMITT HUAPAYA
Publication date: 22/03/2024
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| DANIELA ZANETTI | Presidente |
| MARIA INES DIEUZEIDE SANTOS SOUZA | Examinador Externo |
| PEDRO SILVA MARRA | Examinador Interno |
Summary: This research seeks to understand the tensions, conflicts, and dialogues with alterity and territoriality in the cinematography of the Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, specifically based on the study of his last three fiction feature films: O Som ao Redor (2012), Aquarius (2016), and Bacurau (2019). These works, with distinct aesthetic and discursive proposals, reveal the director's authorial marks and use a common theme: the issue of everyday violence and class conflict, which highlight profound aspects of Brazilian culture by reflecting on the configurations of territories and the class and power relations that characterize the formation of Brazil. The works of Kleber Mendonça Filho, from the state of Pernambuco, address numerous aspects of these relations, and the research sought to relate these class and power disputes to territorialities, whether in their physical or symbolic dimension, considering the problematization that appears in his film narratives about the spaces of dispute, in the city and in the countryside. His films address issues such as real estate speculation, gentrification, land grabbing, but also other forms of colonialism and domination, such as unequal class and gender relations. Using these three films as the corpus of research, this study aimed to identify how territorialities and symbolic violence are established in each of the diegetic spaces presented in these feature films. To this end, a comparative method of film analysis was used, prioritizing the characterization of space-time and the actions of the characters on the territories. It was verified in the three films how, in different ways, the representation of the territories and the territorialities generated from the actions of the characters reflect historical class and power disputes.
