4. Le cinéma autochtone et la décolonisation de l'esprit à travers la lettre parlée

Alors qu’un rapport qui date de 1992 démontrait qu’il existe entre les Autochtones et les Québécois plus qu’avec toute autre province « la distance sociale la plus faible », les conclusions récentes du rapport de la Commission Vérité et Réconciliation du Canada (2015) ainsi que les résultats de *L’enquête sur les femmes autochtones disparues et assassinées* (2019) démontrent la teneur des conséquences de la colonisation sur les peuples autochtones qui n’ont pas été épargnés par le Québec (Marshall, 2001 : 239). À cet effet, la Crise d’Oka de 1990 a mis en évidence l’énorme fossé culturel qui séparait les Premières Nations du peuple québécois. Victimes d’une colonisation culturelle, linguistique et territoriale qui s’est manifestée entre autres par l’assimilation des enfants arrachés à leur famille et placés dans des pensionnats où ils étaient fréquemment battus et agressés sexuellement (1820-1990), les Premiers Peuples ont adopté de force la langue du colonisateur, délaissant (du moins partiellement) une culture orale pluridimensionnelle pour se conformer au système d’écrire de la société dominante. Or, l’émergence récente d’une littérature proprement autochtone change quelque peu la donne, car plusieurs auteures (Joséphine Bacon, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine) ont appris à manipuler la langue du colonisateur de façon à faire entendre le rythme, les explosions sonores, le timbre et la poésie de la langue maternelle. De même, comme le souligne Sarah Henzi, certains écrivains explorent les possibilités de renégociation de la langue en y intégrant « des mots, des expressions, voire des phrases complètes de leur langue maternelle à leurs écrits de langue anglaise ou française » (2010 : 79). Ce processus leur permet de redécouvrir certaines dimensions de leur propre langue aujourd’hui disparues. De même, en ce qui concerne plus spécifiquement les nouvelles générations, dans un contexte où dans la plupart des communautés la jeunesse (moins de 30 ans) représente plus de la moitié de la population (cette proportion pouvant même atteindre 70%), la question de la transmission culturelle face aux relations intergénérationnelles demeure une préoccupation première ainsi qu’un enjeu de taille. Les réalisés contemporaines des dernières générations est le plus souvent abordées en termes de rupture culturelle, de crise identitaire ou encore de pertes de repères (Jérôme, 2005 : 3). D’ailleurs, plusieurs auteurs – dont Sylvie Poirier (2009), Natasha Gagné et Jérôme Laurent (2009) – mettent en lumière les défis de la jeune génération qui, face à une dualité quotidienne, doit s’atteler à des tâches colossales. Parmi celles-ci, nous retrouvons le retissage de l’ordre social, l’exploration de nouvelles voies d’engagement avec les allochtones ainsi que la redéfinition des institutions, et ce « à partir de la réalité des communautés contemporaines et d’un nouveau rapport (sédentarisation) avec le territoire » (Poirier, 2009 : 26).

À cet effet, le cinéma se présente comme un outil idéal de remédiation de la parole et de la tradition orale, car il allie les qualités de la lettre écrite (intimité, adresse personnelle, trace qui perdure) à celles davantage technologiques du cinéma (montage, alliance du son de l’image et du mouvement, techniques de narration). Ces techniques permettent l’autochtonisation des médiums de l’écriture et du cinéma, à travers des stratégies de réappropriation qui impliquent entres autres l’utilisation de la lettre comme objet de guérison, donc de décolonisation individuelle et collective. Parce que le cinéma s’avère suffisant lorsqu’il s’agit de traduire les subtilités des langues et de la culture orale, la lettre ne fait que de brèves apparitions dans les films réalisés par des réalisateurs autochtones. Nous la retrouvons principalement dans
quelques courts-métrages issus du projet Wapikoni Mobile, un studio ambulant de création audiovisuelle qui permet aux jeunes de créer une œuvre à travers des ateliers audios/vidéos.

Utilisée principalement par les jeunes femmes comme forme privilégiée de l'expression féminine, la lettre parlée s'allie à la voix et à ses dispositifs différents pour « orienter la perception des images et donner du relief à ce qui est présent dans leur silence » (Tourneur, 2014 : 12). À cet égard, il est intéressant de noter que la grande majorité des cinéastes autochtones au Canada sont des femmes, qui utilisent le médium du cinéma pour continuer de jouer les rôles imputés par la tradition : enseignantes, guérisseuses, conteuses, propagatrices de la connaissance. La lettre devient alors un outil pédagogique et de guérison individuelle et communautaire, en révélant à la fois l'intime et le public, et ce que l'on pourrait nommer les *politiques de l'âme*. Dépouillés de tout artifice, les courts-métrages réalisés par ces jeunes femmes sont en fait des lettres-poèmes, des lettres-confessions, films personnels et autobiographiques, écrits à la première personne et qui ne peuvent être appréhendés par les seules notions de genre (documentaire, fiction, poétique, expérimental). Ils posent également les questions de l'adresse du film : qui est le véritable spectateur concerné ou imaginé pour ces lettres filmées ?

Par exemple, dans le court-métrage *Napien - Bière* (2013) de la cinéaste innue Daphnée Bellefleur, une enfant adresse une lettre à la bière, dans laquelle elle lui fait part des torts que celle-ci cause à son père et à sa famille. Des images disparates où défilent des scènes de sa vie et de nombreux événements (anniversaire, rencontres familiales, marche dans le village, activités traditionnelles) gâchés par l'abus d'alcool de son père nous aident à comprendre le contexte dans lequel l'enfant situe son discours, alors qu'on la voit assise à une table, dessinant son père avec une bouteille de bière à la main. La voix de l'enfant récite quant à elle la lettre qu'elle a écrite et qui devient à la fois une missive qui dénonce le rôle que tient l'alcool dans sa vie et une supplication à peine voilée, dirigée vers son père. Nous comprenons rapidement que la lettre s'adresse à l'instance paternelle qui demeure par ailleurs tout au long du récit une victime et non un accusé tenu responsable de ses actes :

> Aujourd'hui j'écris une lettre à celle qui fait du mal à mon père et à ma famille. La bière. Bière tu es souvent présente dans la vie de mon père, alors que lui est souvent absent de ma vie. Depuis que je suis née, il m'oublie souvent. Et toi la bière, tu es toujours en train de saouler mon père. Bière, tu es en train de briser mon père. Tu l'as mis en prison plusieurs fois. Bière, tu es en train de détruire l'homme que j'aime. Mon père a oublié comment bien vivre. L'entraide innue, la vie traditionnelle, la famille, l'amour.

De même, de façon détournée, la lettre nous renseigne quant aux conséquences de la colonisation sur le mode de vie traditionnel innu. L'introduction de l'alcool par les Européens et son utilisation par les autochtones dépossédés de leur identité est une partie intégrante (et longtemps mise de côté) de l'histoire du Québec et du Canada. Or, au-delà de l'aspect éducationnel et dénonciateur de la lettre, la dernière séquence d'images du court-métrage se veut porteuse d'un message d'espoir. On y voit l'enfant dans sa tenue de *regalia* (vêtements traditionnels innus) déployer une couverture de médecine et offrir des herbes médicinales (le tabac, la sauge) au feu qui les portera jusqu'au ciel. Ces gestes sont accompagnés d'une *prière* ou plutôt
d'une demande à l'univers : que la bière laisse son père tranquille et qu'il retourne aux valeurs de sa culture. Suite à cette demande, on aperçoit le père qui se dirige vers sa fille, pénètre le cercle de danse sacré et s'engage avec elle sur une voie où la circularité et l'enracinement sont de mises (Image 7). Ici, l'autochtonisation du médium cinématographique se fait à travers une voix qui récite en langue innue le contenu d'une lettre parlée, c'est-à-dire qui n'a jamais existé sur papier, et qui se contente d'être remédiée de l'oral à l'écran. Le film célèbre alors ce que l'auteure Maori Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) nomme les 25 projets de décolonisation autochtone, et qui comprennent des actions telles que : témoigner, partager, se souvenir, connecter, raconter des histoires, réclamer et bien entendu, autochtoniser. L'utilisation de la lettre dans un format qui célèbre la tradition orale devient alors un geste de décolonisation et de réappropriation culturelle de la part de la cinéaste qui utilise un médium allochtone et contemporain pour exprimer sa survivance.

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /><figcaption>Image 7. *Napien- Bière* (Daphnée Bellefleur, 2013). Source : Capture d'écran.</figcaption></figure>

Dans cette veine, *Lettre à mon passé* (2016), de la réalisatrice attikamekw Mélina Quitich- Niquay, est une lettre intime que la cinéaste adresse à une version plus jeune d'elle-même. Plus qu'une lettre-confession, la missive devient, à travers son énonciation à l'écran, une lettre-pardon mais aussi une lettre d'adieu à un passé avec lequel elle souhaite faire la paix, à une vie qu'elle souhaite reconstruire par un nouveau discours et des images qui effaceront en quelque sorte les souffrances vécues antérieurement. De type expérimental, le court-métrage est peuplé d'images symboliques qui illustrent les propos de la narratrice. Par exemple, la première séquence, filmée en noir et blanc, nous offre une magnifique contre-plongée du ciel et de la course des nuages, alors que la voix qui les accompagne nous parle de la dépression en termes de « gros nuage qui met de la noirceur partout » (Image 8). Par la suite, une succession de plans courts donnent à voir la souffrance engendrée par un état dépressif, par l'intermédiaire de symboles tels que : un visage dessiné sur une feuille de papier, et dont on arrache un à un les morceaux, deux mains ouvertes vers le ciel et sur lesquelles tombent des
gouttes de sang et enfin un verre d'eau claire qui se remplit d'encre noire. S'adressant
à la jeune fille qui se laissa jadis entraîner par ses pensées noires, la cinéaste-narratrice
démontre sa compréhension d'un état d'âme que vivent plusieurs jeunes autochtones
aux prises avec la dépression et avec des intentions de suicide : « C'est comme si on
attendait de toi que tu portes des démons comme on porte un collier [...] tu te caches,
tu restes chez toi, tu ne fais rien, tu es dans un trou noir et tu ne vois pas d'issues. Tu
penses que tout va devenir de pire en pire et que la meilleure option est d'en finir. Ce
sentiment que tu as ce n'est qu'un symptôme ».

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>Image 8. *Lettre à mon passé* (Mélina Quitich-Niquay, 2016). Source : Capture d'écran.</figcaption></figure>

Dans la seconde moitié du court-métrage, la lettre prend une direction nouvelle, accompagnée par des images en couleur où se déploient des actions concrètes. Expressée sous forme de conseils et de recommandations, au-delà du rappel à soi-même, la lettre s'adresse plus explicitement à un auditoire constitué de jeunes autochtones qui sauront se reconnaître dans un discours qui prône la guérison et la prise en charge autonome de leur destinée par les individus touchés par la dépression :

Trouve quelque chose que tu aimes et fais-le. Apprends un instrument. Intéresse-toi à la nature, à l'histoire, à l'espace, à l'art. Fais-toi de nouveaux amis. Sors de ta zone de confort et parle aux gens. Promène-toi en forêt et vois toutes les belles choses qui t'entourent, les belles choses qui t'attendent. Accroche-toi tant que tu peux parce que la vie est toujours la meilleure option.

L'esthétique privilégiée par la cinéaste fait montre d'une volonté d'autochtoniser l'image en 1) donnant préséance à la parole, car l'aspect visuel du court-métrage sert avant tout de support à la voix et 2) en favorisant des images tournées dans la communauté et où la nature tient un rôle de premier plan. Il en va ainsi pour d'autres réalisations autochtones où la lettre, en tant qu'objet immatériel, sert de médiateur entre l'émetteur et le récepteur. Elle facilite un processus de communication plus ou
moins complexe, au sein de cultures où la parole, longtemps déployée et transmise
à l'oral, est synonyme d'économie de mots ; une stratégie qui fait partie de ce que
Walter Ong nomme « les psychodynamiques de l'oralité » (1982 : 34), et qui dé-
crivent certaines qualités/éléments qui permettent à la parole d'être retenue et trans-
mise au fil du temps. À la base de ces dynamiques qui contribuent au développement
d'une mémoire orale efficace, Ong identifie la capacité, chez les sociétés orales, de
penser en fonction des relations entre les mots proférés et la vocalité ainsi qu'avec
le corps, l'intégration de certaines pratiques ou motifs qui facilitent l'articulation
d'une pensée claire et compréhensible. Dans cette optique, la lettre revêt dans les
courts-métrages issus du Wapikoni Mobile les caractéristiques propres aux psycho-
dynamiques de l'oralité, se présentant sous les couleurs d'une lettre-poème – *Lettre
à mon passé* –, d'une lettre-chanson – *Lettre à Yannick* (Joey Ruperthouse-Carrier,
2013) –, d'une lettre-histoire – *Napien - Biere* –, d'une lettre-hommage ou d'une
lettre-témoignage – *Lettre à ma fille* (Liliane Awashish, 2015), *La Lettre* (Damien
Newashish, 2004) –. Dans la majorité des cas, la matérialité de la lettre n'est pas en
cause. Dans deux cas spécifiques, *La Lettre* et *A Nutin* (Shushanne Ambroise, 2018),
la présence physique de la lettre à l'écran est de courte durée ; absente et récupérée
dans les dernières secondes de l'œuvre dans *La Lettre* et brûlée par la narratrice dans
la première séquence de *A Nutin*, elle vit et revit à travers la voix qui la récite, qui
la chante, qui la déclame, qui la raconte. Dans *Nikawinan* (Steven Chilton, 2016) et
*Tshitinaht* (Jani Bellefleur Kaltoush, 2012), la lettre adressée au mourant trace un
portrait de famille immortalisé contre l'oubli et devient une façon de contrer la mort,
de ressouder le lien filial et de faire un deuil avant le deuil.

Ce faisant, toutes ces œuvres s'inscrivent dans un corpus autochtone plus large où
prédominent les thèmes qui mettent en évidence la centralité accordée aujourd'hui
encore par les jeunes aux réseaux de parenté, aux logiques familiales et claniques
ainsi qu'à l'attachement au territoire. Comme le souligne Zumthor, « la communica-
tion orale remplit, dans le groupe social, une fonction en grande partie d'extériorisa-
tion. Elle fait entendre, collectivement et globalement, le discours que cette société
tient sur elle-même » (2008 : 169). Dans les cas énumérés ci-haut, la lettre assure la
pérennité du lien familial, culturel et jusqu'à un certain point communautaire, en en-
racinant les témoignages dans une tradition orale et dans un territoire distinct, donc
dans ces lieux où se forge et se redynamise l'identité autochtone dans un contexte
contemporain.

**5. Conclusion**

Si, comme l'affirme Christian Poirier, l'identité est conceptualisée « comme une
mise en récit par laquelle la société construit sa mémoire collective, articule des
thématiques majeures au sein d'un certain nombre d'horizons discursifs et élabore
des projets d'avenir » (2004 : 12), le cinéma québécois contribue au dialogue sur
les identités plurielles à travers des œuvres qui explorent et racontent les lieux de la
mémoire, ces espaces intermédiaires (réels et imaginaires) où se reconfigurent les
cultures en mouvance. Dans les films documentaires réalisés par des immigrants
qui cherchent à s'implanter dans une terre d'accueil – *Lettres de Pyong Yang* (Jason
Lee, 2014), *Journal inachevé* (Marilu Mallet, 1982) *Histoire de sable* (Hyacinthe
Combari, 2004) – la lettre et/ou le journal intime est le scellant qui raccorde le pays d’origine et à la nouvelle nation où s’implante le protagoniste. Dans les œuvres fictionnelles telles que *La Vallée des larmes* (Marianne Zéhil, 2012) ou *The Death and Life of John F. Donovan* (Xavier Dolan, 2019), elle devient un accessoire dramatique qui introduit un point de vue subjectif dans le récit, celui du personnage principal qui pose à travers la lettre les paramètres de son identité. Dans le cinéma autochtone, la lettre, en tant qu’objet le plus souvent immatériel et porté par la voix, se transforme en une archive vivante qui reconfigure le passé et oriente le présent. Portée par une voix « qui ne se contente pas seulement d’orienter la perception des images, mais qui donne du relief à ce qui est présent dans leur silence » (Tourneur, 2014 : 12), elle favorise les envolées lyriques, les témoignages intimes et les confessions douloureuses, comme dans les courts-métrages *Eshka Inniuin* (Daphné Jourdain, 2016) et *Kir otci ntcotco* (Marianna Niquay Ottawa, 2008). Partout ailleurs, elle s’insinue, le plus souvent de manière discrète, et contamine le film québécois de manière sym-bolique, en ajoutant au volet oralité une dimension matérielle, tactile. Enfin, elle participe à une mise en commun de la mémoire collective québécoise en tissant des liens entre l’identité, les références temporelles et les relations filiales. Elle joue ainsi avec brio le rôle que lui attribue le cinéma, soit d’assurer la pérennité du lien à coup de serments, de déclarations et de présence.

## 6. Bibliographie

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La carta como elemento de la construcción de una memoria sobre la
dictadura en el documental latinoamericano contemporáneo

Ignacio del Valle Dávila<fnref n="1" />

Recibido: 27 de febrero de 2019 / Aceptado: 11 de junio de 2019

**Resumen.** Este artículo tiene como objetivo estudiar los usos de la carta como estrategia discursiva y elemento narrativo en los films latinoamericanos contemporáneos dirigidos por familiares de militantes políticos y víctimas de los aparatos represivos de las dictaduras del Cono Sur. Con ese fin, se analizan los vínculos que entrejen tanto la enunciación epistolar como la carta, en su dimensión archivística, con el cine en primera persona y los modos performativos del audiovisual. Asimismo, se proponen diferentes modelizaciones de la memoria del pasado autoritario emprendidas por estos films: el paradigma de la resistencia, el de la víctima del terrorismo de Estado y el de la víctima colateral.

**Palabras clave:** enunciación epistolar; segunda generación; archivo; memoria; giro subjetivo; dictadura

[en] The Letter as an Element in the Construction of a Memory of the Dictatorship in Contemporary Latin American Documentary

**Abstract.** This article aims to study the uses of the letter as a discursive strategy and narrative element in contemporary Latin American films directed by relatives of political militants and victims of the repressive apparatuses of the Southern Cone dictatorships. To this end, we analyze the links that interweave both the epistolary enunciation and the letter, in its archival dimension, with the cinema in the first person and the performative modes of the audiovisual creation. Likewise, we propose different models of the memory of the authoritarian past carried out by these films: the paradigm of resistance, the victim of State terrorism and the collateral victim.

**Key words:** epistolary enunciation; second generation; archive; memory; subjective turn; dictatorship

[fr] La lettre comme élément de la construction d'une mémoire sur la dictature
dans le documentaire latino-américain contemporain

**Résumé.** Cet article vise à étudier les usages de la lettre comme stratégie discursive et élément narratif dans les films latino-américains contemporains réalisés par des proches de militants politiques et des victimes d'appareils répressifs des dictatures du Cône Sud. À cette fin, on analyse les liens qui entre-mèlent l'énonciation épistolaire et la lettre, dans sa dimension archivistique, avec le cinéma à la première personne et les modes performatifs de l'audiovisuel. De même, on propose de différents modèles de la mémoire du passé autoritaire entrepris par ces films : le paradigme de la résistance, celui de la victime du terrorisme d'État et celui de la victime collatérale.

**Mots clé :** énonciation épistolaire ; seconde génération ; archive ; mémoire ; tournant subjectif ; dictature

<footnote n="1">¹ Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana (Brasil)
E-mail: elvalledeignacio@gmail.com</footnote>
**Sumario.** 1. Introducción. 2. El giro subjetivo y el espacio biográfico. 3. Autoetnografías. 4. Los elementos epistolares en los films y sus hibridaciones. 5. Conclusión. 6. Bibliografía.

**Cómo citar.** Del Valle Dávila, Ignacio (2019). La carta como elemento de la construcción de una memoria sobre la dictadura en el documental latinoamericano contemporáneo. *Área Abierta. Revista de comunicación audiovisual y publicitaria* 19 (3), 327-346. https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/arab.63478

# 1. Introducción

El viento levanta polvo sobre una superficie terrosa, filmada en un travelling a ras de suelo. En la banda sonora se escucha su ulular. Lentamente la cámara se levanta y muestra un horizonte montañoso y desértico. Un fundido a negro da paso al título de la película: *Mi vida con Carlos* (Germán Berger, 2009). La siguiente imagen es una filmación casera de un hombre joven que entra corriendo al mar (Imagen 1). La velocidad ha sido alterada para hacerla avanzar en ralentí. Una voz *over* afirma: “La primera vez que te vi fue en esta imagen de super-8. Nunca vi tu cuerpo en movimiento o más bien no lo recuerdo”. A continuación, la cámara muestra una mano recorriendo cajas de archivos, hasta detenerse en una en la que está escrito “Carlos Berger G., Caravana de la Muerte”. Durante ese tiempo, la voz ha continuado diciendo: “No podría recordarte porque nadie me habló nunca de ti. Tenía un año cuando te mataron y tú tenías 30”. La voz y la mano pertenecen al director Germán Berger, hijo de Carlos Berger, un dirigente político asesinado en el norte de Chile, tras el Golpe de Estado de 1973, cuyo cuerpo nunca ha sido encontrado.

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /><figcaption>Imagen 1. Film en super-8 de Carlos Berger. *Mi vida con Carlos* (Germán Berger, 2009). Fuente: Captura de pantalla.</figcaption></figure>
Los créditos del film *Elena* (Petra Costa, 2012), acompañados por los sonidos agudos de la lluvia y de un instrumento de viento, dan paso a imágenes desenfocadas de farolas, señales de tráfico y calles nocturnas de Nueva York filmadas desde un vehículo en movimiento. Enseguida, la cámara filma la ventanilla de un coche sobre la que se reflejan las luces, mientras en el interior se atisba la figura de una mujer joven (Imagen 2). Una voz *over* femenina acompaña la escena desde el inicio:

> Elena, he soñado contigo esta noche. Tú eras suave, andabas por las calles de Nueva York con una blusa de seda. Intento caminar hasta ti, tocarte, sentir tu olor, pero cuando veo, tú estás encima de un muro, enredada en un montón de cables eléctricos. Miro otra vez, y veo que soy yo quien está encima del muro. Revuelvo en los cables, buscando que me dé la corriente y me caigo de un muro muy alto y me muero<fnref n="2" />.

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>Imagen 2. Petra Costa en Nueva York. *Elena* (Petra Costa, 2012).</figcaption></figure>

Fuente: Captura de pantalla.

La voz y el rostro pertenecen a Petra Costa, cuya hermana mayor, Elena Costa, se suicidó en 1991, a los 20 años, cuando estudiaba actuación en Nueva York.

En el inicio de *Mi vida con Carlos* y de *Elena* está presente el mismo recurso discursivo, que servirá para estructurar toda la narrativa: un *yo* se dirige a un *tú* ausente. Sin embargo, la distancia entre los interlocutores es insalvable, se trata de un contrato comunicativo imposible, pues el destinatario para quien en teoría el discurso del emisor ha sido elaborado, ha muerto. Como diría Lourdes Monterrubio, estamos ante una “escritura epistolar del duelo que posibilita la invocación-apelación del ausente en el territorio de la no-ficción” (2018: 467).

Evidentemente, ni Carlos Berger ni Elena Costa son los destinatarios reales de esas cartas audiovisuales, sino que lo es el público. Pero, en ambos casos, el dispo-

<footnote n="2">² Las traducciones de citas en portugués y en francés procedentes de libros o films publicados en esas lenguas son de mi autoría.</footnote>
sitivo epistolar ha sido instrumentalizado con el objetivo de establecer un contra-
to de lectura que, parafraseando a Noel Carroll (2005), pretende que el espectador
*considere* las *proposiciones* presentadas en el film como si un enunciador real —yo—
estuviese dirigiéndose a un destinatario real —tú—, sobre acontecimientos reales que
afectan a ambos<fnref n="3" />. Ese recurso sirve como poderosa herramienta para la elaboración
de discursos memorialísticos sobre un pasado con el que emisor y destinatario han
estado involucrados de diferentes maneras.

La carta dirigida a un muerto no es corriente en las cinematografías latino-
americanas, quizás por la radicalidad de su propuesta; sin embargo, la enunciación
epistolar sí ha encontrado un terreno relativamente fértil en el cine producido en
el subcontinente. No es una novedad, pues bajo diversas formas, la epístola como
elemento narrativo ha estado presente en algunos títulos de directores emblemáticos
de los nuevos cines latinoamericanos, siendo la obra del argentino Fernando Solanas
el caso más llamativo. Puede apreciarse en *La hora de los hornos* (1968)<fnref n="4" /> y *Tangos,
el exilio de Gardel* (1985)<fnref n="5" /> y, en menor medida, de *Los hijos de Fierro* (1976) y *Sur*
(1988)<fnref n="6" />. Sin embargo, solo es posible constatar en los últimos 15 años un aumento
de películas donde la epístola tiene importancia como elemento narrativo o principio
estructurador del relato. Al respecto, podríamos citar los largometrajes *Papá Iván*
(María Inés Roqué, México-Argentina, 2000), *Los rubios* (Albertina Carri, Argen-
tina, 2003), *Cartas postales de Leningrado* (Mariana Rondón, Venezuela, 2007),
*Reinalda del Carmen, mi mamá y yo* (Lorena Giachino, Chile, 2006), *Mi vida con
Carlos* (Germán Berger, Chile-España, 2009), *El edificio de los chilenos*
(Macarena
Aguiló, Chile, 2010), *Abuelos* (Carla Valencia, Chile-Ecuador, 2010), *Diario de una
búsqueda* (*Diário de uma busca*, Flávia Castro, Brasil-Francia, 2010), *Elena*
(Petra
Costa, Brasil, 2012), *Los días con él* (*Os dias com ele*, María Clara Escobar, Brasil,
2013).

Se trata de films que abordan, desde un prisma subjetivo y testimonial, experien-
cias asociadas a las violaciones de los derechos humanos perpetradas por las dicta-
duras de América Latina<fnref n="7" />. En ellos se ahonda en los traumas familiares vinculados
al exilio, la tortura, la prisión política o la desaparición y sus realizadores pertenecen
a una segunda o tercera generación, que aún no había nacido o no había llegado a la
edad adulta en el momento en que se produjeron esos acontecimientos<fnref n="8" />. Trazar las

<footnote n="3">³ Me inspiro aquí en la explicación que ofrece Carroll sobre la diferencia entre proposiciones ficcionales y no ficcionales. Así, por ejemplo, según Carroll, en el caso de la ficción se le estaría planteando al espectador: "pre tendo que contemple estas proposiciones (p) como no-assertivas" (2005: 87-88). Todas las traducciones de citas originales son nuestras.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Véase al respecto el trabajo de María Amelia García y Teresita María Victoria Fuentes: “A Look from Literature on Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino’s *The Hour of the Furnaces*” (2019).</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ Para un análisis de este caso y su relación con el exilio ver: “Tangos, el exilio de Gardel: reflexividad y grotesco en el cine de Fernando Solanas” (Del Valle Dávila, 2014).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ Otros realizadores latinoamericanos, como la chilena Marilú Mallet en *Journal inachevé* (1982) o el brasileño-
israelí David Perlov en *Diario 1973-1983* (1983), exploraron su propia biografía a partir de un tipo de auto-
objetivación, el film-diario, que presenta algunos puntos en común con el film-carta, aunque no pueda ser con-
fundido con este. Para un estudio de ambos casos, ver, respectivamente: “El espacio donde confluyen presente
y pasado: “Un acercamiento a los films *Journal inachevé* y *La cueca sola* de Marilú Mallet” (Margulis, 2016) y
“David Perlov, epifanías do cotidiano”” (Feldman, 2011).</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ En el caso de Elena la participación de los padres en organizaciones militantes clandestinas durante la dictadura brasileña, si bien es abordada en el film, no constituye su tema principal.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ La realizadora chilena Tiziana Panizza ha realizado la trilogía *Cartas Visuales* compuesta por los títulos *Dear*</footnote>
razones que llevan a la presencia de elementos epistolares en esos films y delinear algunas de las principales características de aquellos que asumen una enunciación epistolar son los principales objetivos de este artículo<fnref n="9" />. Mi hipótesis es que la utilización de este tipo de elementos es síntoma de una autoconsciencia filmica que se manifiesta como una reflexión sobre el carácter intrínsecamente mediático de la memoria<fnref n="10" />. Pero hay más, la aparición de la carta, en sus diferentes modalidades, puede ser entendida como una forma de ejercitar y de reivindicar la intermedialidad que caracteriza a los ejercicios de memoria sobre la dictadura que proliferan en el “espacio biográfico” –como lo denomina Leonor Arfuch (2002)– de los países del Cono Sur. Aún con plena conciencia del carácter provisorio de esta propuesta, me parece posible postular que, en estas películas, las diferentes modulaciones de lo epistolar aluden a la fuerte dependencia establecida entre la memoria y los medios que la vehiculan. Al mismo tiempo, la presencia de esos elementos epistolares propone una reflexión sobre el tránsito constante de la memoria en una trama de interacciones compuesta por distintos soportes, géneros y disciplinas que incluyen en sus formas de expresión al audiovisual y la escritura –puestos aquí de relieve–, pero también a las artes visuales y escénicas, a la fotografia, las instalaciones, etc. (Arfuch, 2016).

En buena parte de esos films, la enunciación epistolar, donde un yo se dirige a un tú del que está separado por el tiempo y el espacio, alcanza hibridaciones con otras formas inspiradas también en los géneros literarios, como el diario íntimo, el ensayo o la crónica de viajes. Ello no es de extrañar, pues en todos estos casos estamos ante discursos con una autoconsciencia filmica, cimentada a partir de una primera persona, en los cuales el testimonio es primordial. Habría que añadir, como ha hecho ver Paola Lagos Labbé (2012: 17), que en la gran mayoría de los casos la carta filmica no

<footnote>Nonna: A Film Letter (2005), Remitente, una carta visual (2008) y Al final: la última carta (2012). De acuerdo con Irene Depetris Chauvin (2017: 452): “Narradas en inglés y en español, las cartas enfatizan la distancia, al tiempo que la recolección de imágenes y textos abstractos, íntimos y poéticos se yuxtaponen y liberan sentidos múltiples”. Se trata de cortometrajes donde experiencias personales asociadas con distintas relaciones de parentesco –madre, hija, nieta, sobrina– se entrecruzan con una reflexión sobre el cine, la memoria, la distancia, el paso del tiempo. En esa reflexión se hacen presentes algunos de los principales conflictos sociales que enfrenta la sociedad chilena a comienzos del siglo XXI: el pasado dictatorial, la modernización neoliberal, las reformas urbanísticas, la muerte de Augusto Pinochet y las protestas estudiantiles de los años 2010 y 2011. Sin embargo, no son, en términos estrictos, films donde se elabore una memoria transgeneracional de las dictaduras latinoamericanas.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ La lista de películas realizadas por familiares de víctimas de violaciones de los derechos humanos o de opositores a las dictaduras latinoamericanas es bastante más extensa que la serie de ejemplos que he citado; sin embargo, me he limitado a mencionar –sin pretensión de exhaustividad– aquellas donde los elementos epistolares juegan un papel de importancia dentro de la narración o de la enunciación. Desde una perspectiva transnacional, la investigación más completa hasta la fecha sobre los llamados films de segunda y tercera generación en América Latina es la tesis de doctorado de Fernando Seliprandy: “Documentário e memória intergeracional das ditaduras do Cone Sul” (2018). El autor ha rastreado la existencia de 67 documentales (cortometrajes, mediometrajes y largometrajes) con estas características realizados entre 1996 y 2017 en Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Uruguay.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Sigo aquí el pensamiento de Andreas Huyssen sobre el papel de los medios en el impulso de los “pretéritos presentes”: “Más allá de cuáles hayan sido las causas sociales y políticas del boom de la memoria con sus diversos subargumentos, geografías y sectores, algo es seguro: no podemos discutir la memoria personal, generacional o pública sin contemplar la enorme influencia de los nuevos medios como vehículos de toda forma de memoria. En este sentido, ya no es posible seguir pensando seriamente en el Holocausto o en cualquier otra forma de trauuma histórico como una temática ética y política sin incluir las múltiples formas en que se vincula en la actualidad con la mercantilización y la espectacularización en películas, museos, docudramas, sitios de Internet, libros de fotografías, historietas, ficción e incluso en cuentos de hadas (La vita é bella, de Benigni) y en canciones pop” (2007: 24).</footnote>
espera respuesta del destinatario, sino el compartir con el espectador las reflexiones del director.

En la coproducción franco-brasileña realizada por Flávia Castro la copresencia del diario y la carta es tan fuerte que incide sobre el título. En portugués se tituló *Diário de uma busca*, haciendo hincapié en el carácter de diario fílmico y búsqueda personal de la directora de la película, que intenta investigar la muerte de su padre, el militante Celso Castro, ocurrida en los últimos meses de la dictadura brasileña. Para el circuito francés, donde el film llegó antes que a Brasil, se escogió como título *Lettres et révolutions* (Cartas y revoluciones), poniendo el énfasis en las numerosas cartas de Celso Castro que son leídas en el film y en su actividad política (Seliprandy, 2018: 46)<fnref n="11" />.

Esa hibridación se hace particularmente presente en el largometraje *Viajo porque debo, vuelvo porque te amo* (Viajo porque preciso, volto porque te amo, Marcelo Gomes, Karim Ainouz, Brasil, 2009), si bien la memoria de la dictadura no sea el tema del film. La voz *over* asume ser, al mismo tiempo: un diario de viajes; cartas de amor a la esposa perdida; y, curiosamente, el registro de una bitácora de trabajo, con datos sobre la geología semiárida del interior del Nordeste brasileño. Nada de eso, empero, puede considerarse como verdadero, pues ni el enunciador ni los acontecimientos son reales, volveré sobre este punto más adelante.

## 2. El giro subjetivo y el espacio biográfico

El incremento de producciones cinematográficas que echan mano de la forma epistolar está asociado a la revalorización contemporánea de los relatos subjetivos. Como destaca Beatriz Sarlo (2005), en los últimos cuarenta años, en las narraciones sobre el pasado puede percibirse, en líneas generales, un desplazamiento del centro de interés desde el análisis de los grandes procesos históricos hacia el de lo cotidiano, lo privado y lo íntimo; nuevos espacios para la investigación donde gozan de visibilidad figuras tradicionalmente marginadas o subalternas como las mujeres y las minorías raciales y sexuales. Dentro de ese progresivo y parcial cambio de foco, ha ganado terreno el análisis de lo que Sarlo denomina "discursos de memoria", es decir, "diarios, cartas, consejos, oraciones" (2005: 19). Esas mudanzas confirmarían que estaríamos en presencia de un "giro subjetivo" que afecta a la producción intelectual y artística:

> Contemporáneo a lo que se llamó en los años setenta y ochenta el "giro lingüístico", o acompañándolo muchas veces como su sombra, se ha impuesto el *giro subjetivo*. [...] Coincide con una renovación análoga en la sociología de la cultura y los estudios culturales, donde la identidad de los sujetos ha vuelto a tomar el lugar que, en los años sesenta, fue ocupado por las estructuras. Se ha restaurado la *razón del sujeto* que fue, hace décadas, mera "ideología" o "falsa conciencia", es decir, discurso que encubría ese depósito oscuro de impulsos o mandatos que

<footnote n="11">¹¹ Dado que se trata de una coproducción franco-brasileña y que el film circuló antes en Francia que en Brasil, me parece pertinente considerar el título en francés como una versión a la que se le debe atribuir la misma importancia que al título escogido para Brasil. En virtud de ello, a continuación utilizaré ambos títulos para referirme al film.</footnote>
el sujeto necesariamente ignoraba. En consecuencia, la historia oral y el testimo-
nio han devuelto la confianza a esa primera persona que narra la vida (privada,
pública, afectiva, política), para conservar el recuerdo o para reparar la identidad
lastimada. (2005: 22)<fnref n="12" />

Como ha hecho ver Leonor Arfuch (2016), ese *giro subjetivo* está también asocia-
do al creciente interés –que en los peores casos se ha convertido en una moda dentro
del argot académico– por el estudio de los *afectos*. Es decir, por hacer de las emo-
ciones un objeto de análisis a partir del cual aproximarse al sujeto o a los lazos entre
el sujeto y las comunidades a las que pertenece. Esta aproximación les otorga a los
afectos un lugar importante en la estructura social, al tiempo que se interesa por las
consecuencias políticas de ellos, consciente de que la delimitación de las fronteras
entre lo público y lo privado se vuelve un ejercicio cada vez más difícil y arriesgado.
Frontera imposible de establecer en el caso de los films estudiados, donde las conse-
cuencias (públicas y privadas) del terror de Estado son abordadas a partir de la huella
afectiva que dejaron en la segunda generación. Como veremos más adelante, la carta
en ellos sirve como testimonio de esa huella y, a la vez, como *patrimonio afectivo*,
ruina del pasado.

Desde la perspectiva de los estudios culturales, Robert Stam y Ella Shohat (2005: 402-405) ofrecen un diagnóstico de la producción contemporánea que coincide con Sarlo y Arfuch al contemplar el resurgimiento de la subjetividad como una reacción a la disolución del sujeto emprendida por el posestructuralismo. Sin embargo, llama la atención que ambos autores le atribuyan al pensamiento poscolonial un papel primordial dentro de esa crítica al posestructuralismo. Para el poscolonialismo lo que subyacería tras la declarada muerte del sujeto sería la negativa de agentes que tradicionalmente han gozado de posiciones hegemónicas –hombres blancos occidentales de naciones ricas– a aceptar que otros agentes tradicionalmente considerados como periféricos alcanzasen el estatuto de sujetos –mujeres, autores no occidentales, minorías, etc.–. No es mi intención en este artículo polemizar sobre las intenciones de los posestructuralistas; sin embargo, sí me parece pertinente destacar que la *con- fianza en la primera persona*, de la que habla Sarlo, ha sido una reivindicación de corrientes de pensamiento periféricas. Ello por dos razones: la primera es que nos ayudaría a entender por qué la eclosión de narrativas subjetivas –dentro de las que se sitúa la enunciación epistolar– encuentra terreno fértil en las cinematografías latinoamericanas, tradicionalmente consideradas como periféricas. La segunda es que las mujeres –históricamente excluidas de la realización cinematográfica o relegadas

<footnote n="12">¹² Recientemente Fernando Seliprandy (2018: 29) ha llamado la atención sobre las “complicaciones epistemológicas” del concepto de *giro subjetivo*, destacando, por un lado, la idea de cambio brusco y abrupto que encierra la noción de *giro y*, por otro, el riesgo de caer en una dicotomía donde habría un *antes* objetivo y asertivo, claramente separado de un *ahora* subjetivo y titubeante. Los reparos de Seliprandy alertan acertadamente sobre los riesgos de una lectura apresurada del concepto, demasiado preocupada por encontrar un nombre llamativo con el que bautizar nuevas tendencias cinematográficas. Evidentemente, ni toda la producción contemporánea es subjetiva y titubeante, ni existen hitos claramente determinables que hayan establecido un cambio abrupto en la producción. Ahora bien, respecto de esto último habría que recordar que la propia Sarlo se refiere al *giro subjetivo* como un largo proceso iniciado en los años setenta y no como una súbita moda intelectual. Finalmente, aunque los relatos subjetivos no sean mayoritarios, sí han tenido una importante repercusión en los circuitos de festivales, en la recepción crítica y en la teorización académica, lo que hace perfectamente posible atribuirles un papel relevante en el devenir de las cinematografías latinoamericanas.</footnote>
a un papel secundario– han gozado de una centralidad indiscutible como directoras de films sobre la memoria de la segunda generación en América Latina. Es más, aunque son pocas las películas que asumen explícitamente un discurso feminista, esta producción se caracteriza por una fuerte tendencia a analizar desde un prisma testimonial, doméstico y familiar las consecuencias de macroprocesos sociales, como las dictaduras del Cono Sur, haciéndose eco de un principio de la segunda ola del feminismo: el carácter político de lo privado.<fnref n="13" />

El rescate de la subjetividad tiene como piedra angular la utilización de la primera persona y el abandono de las pretensiones de omnisciencia, autoridad, asertividad y objetividad del documental tradicional. De acuerdo con Pablo Piedras: “la incorporación de la primera persona autoral en el cine documental producirá perturbaciones en los pactos comunicativos entre la obra y el espectador, dado que el tipo de aserción sobre el mundo histórico formulada por el documental ingresaría en una zona de relativismo a causa del énfasis en la subjetividad” (2014: 107). Es por ello que –como el propio Piedras advierte– ese tipo de cine puede relacionarse con el *modo performativo* del cine documental, definido por Bill Nichols como aquel que: “enfatiza el aspecto subjetivo o expresivo del propio compromiso del cineasta con su tema y la receptividad del público con ese compromiso” (2005: 63).

Puede entreverse en los análisis de Piedras y Nichols que ese relativismo subjetivo va de la mano con una identificación entre el enunciador y la persona real del cineasta, estableciéndose un pacto autobiográfico. En ese sentido, pese a la diferencia de soportes, sería posible establecer similitudes entre los films que asumen una enunciación epistolar y las cartas de amor, donde, de acuerdo con Celia Fernández Prieto: “el yo y el tú textuales, se identifican con el remitente y el destinatario reales, cuyos nombres propios y dirección postal constan en el sobre y en el propio marco de la carta y entre ellos rige un pacto de veracidad, es decir, ambos confían en que el otro dice la verdad, escribe lo que realmente siente” (2001: 20). Aunque la enunciación en estos films no coincide a la que se establecería entre dos amantes, sí está dentro del campo de los afectos –involucra relaciones e historias familiares– y se presupone que se está diciendo la verdad. Con todo, al igual que en la escritura epistolar, en todos estos films las puertas de la ficción permanecen entreabiertas. Buscando evidenciar esa ambigüedad, François Jost recupera para el cine una reflexión de Genette sobre la literatura: nada haría posible diferenciar, al menos en teoría, una novela en primera persona del “conjunto de enunciados constitutivos de una autobiografía, de un diario o de correspondencia auténticos” (2014: 139). En efecto, incluso en relatos en primera persona que reivindican su carácter auténtico o veraz, la superposición del narrador y del autor se ven tensiónadas por la imposibilidad de una identificación total entre ambos, que va de la mano con la imposibilidad de la fusión total entre la vivencia y su representación. De esta manera, incluso en los discursos cinematográficos que asumen el paso de

<footnote n="13">¹³ Esta explicación me parece más satisfactoria que atribuirle un “simulacro edípico” a las directoras que, a través de un cine en primera persona, han indagado sobre la prisión política, tortura, exilio, muerte o desaparición de sus padres, como ha propuesto Ana Amado: “Entre los títulos y autores cada vez más numerosos sobresale, por la relevancia de sus respectivas búsquedas formales (quizá también por su circulación en circuitos de estreno comercial, no accesible en todos los casos), la producción de un puñado de artistas y cineastas mujeres. [...] son obras que pueden interpretarse como un testimonio abierto a los dilemas de la memoria personal al poner en escena, desde su posición de hijas, un simulacro edípico en nombre de la memoria del padre o de los padres muertos a raíz de la violencia política de los setenta” (2005: 225-226).</footnote>
la tercera persona a la primera, se “vuelve difícil la separación de lo ficticio y de lo vivido” (Jost, 2014: 139).

*Diario de una búsqueda/Lettres et révolutions* comienza con las siguientes palabras de Flávia Castro: “Mi padre murió en Puerto Alegre, el 4 de octubre de 1984, en circunstancias misteriosas. Él tenía 41 años… No sé si la palabra misteriosa es la más apropiada. Voy a empezar otra vez”. Las palabras parecen estar siendo leídas, la voz es segura, nada está siendo improvisado. ¿Se trata de una hesitación real? ¿Está siendo reconstituida una duda que realmente asaltó a la directora? ¿Se trata de un recurso que causar la sensación de titubeo, de inseguridad y de incertidumbre? ¿Cuánto de veracidad y cuánto de ficción hay en las palabras que Germán Berger le escribe a su padre asesinado? ¿Se pueden considerar como el recuerdo de vivencias las animaciones que inserta Macarena Aguiló en *El edifico de los chilenos*? (Imagen 3). La cuestión no es poner en duda la sinceridad de las emociones contenidas en los ejemplos citados, sino plantear que en ellos lo vivido se entremezcla con lo imaginado –la base de toda ficción– creando una “zona intermediaria” entre la ficción y la realidad (Jost, 2014: 139).<fnref n="14" />

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /><figcaption>Imagen 3. Zonas intermediarias: fragmento animado de *El edificio de los chilenos* (Macarena Aguiló, 2010). Fuente: Captura de pantalla.</figcaption></figure>

De forma un tanto apresurada, podría aducirse contra el argumentó de Jost que no deben establecerse comparaciones entre el yo de la literatura y el del cine puesto que ambos soportes son diferentes. Surge aquí la cuestión de la imagen indicial como una diferencia (en apariencia) insalvable entre el cine y la literatura que dificultaría una reflexión sobre las posibles aproximaciones de las figuraciones del yo y del pac-to autobiográfico en el audiovisual y en la escritura. Ese tipo de posicionamientos

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ En esa misma zona intermediaria se halla otro título emblemático de la enunciación epistolar en América Latina, aunque no directamente relacionado con la dictadura, *Viajo porque debo, vuelvo porque te amo*. Su reflexión en-sayística de fuerte valor antropológico sobre un Nordeste brasileño postergado y condenado a la extinción está poderosamente enraizada en lo real –todas las imágenes son documentales–, a pesar de que la vivencia relatada por la voz *over* sea ficticia.</footnote>
destilan la nostalgia por una ontología de la imagen indicial de raigambre baziniana. Todo ello pareciera un velero frágil, que corre el riesgo de zozobrar en el océano turbulento de unos y ceros del digital. Evidentemente la configuración del yo en un soporte audiovisual tiene particularidades con respecto a la del soporte escrito, pero lo que me parece interesante aquí es que en ambos casos estamos ante una construcción –incluso si creyéramos fervientemente en el realismo ontológico del cine–. Habría que añadir que, a su manera, los índices también están presentes en la literatura, y que son particularmente evidenciados cuando lo que está en juego son las “zonas intermediarias” y el pacto autobiográfico. Como afirma Arfuch:

> Pero si los géneros canónicos están obligados a respetar cierta verosimilitud de la historia contada –que no supone necesariamente veracidad–, otras variantes del espacio biográfico pueden producir un efecto altamente desestabilizador, quizá como “desquite” ante tanto exceso de referencialidad “testimonial”: las que, sin renuncia a la identificación de autor, se plantean jugar otro juego, el de trastocar, disolver la propia idea de autobiografía, desdibujar sus umbrales, apostar al equívoco, a la confusión identitaria e indicial –un autor que da su nombre a un personaje, o se narra en segunda o tercera persona, hace un relato ficticio con datos verdaderos o a la inversa, se inventa una historia-otra, escribe con otros nombres, etc. etc. (2002: 98)

En la traducción al español de la novela *A resistência* (2015) (*La resistencia*, 2018), de Julián Fuks, escritor brasileño de origen argentino, la portada fue concebida usando una foto de infancia de los hermanos del autor. Tanto en ese libro y como en la novela anterior de Fuks, *Procura do romance* (2011), el protagonista se llama Sebastián –un nombre hispánico cuya última sílaba presenta la misma dificultad de pronunciación en portugués que el nombre real del escritor. En *Ensaio de vôo* (2017) las reflexiones de Paloma Vidal sobre escribir en un teléfono móvil inciden en la forma de escribir el libro –sin utilizar las mayúsculas–, la diagramación y el trabajo de edición<fnref n="15" />. Los tres ejemplos dan cuenta de los juegos con referenciales, índices y soportes en la literatura, a los que se refería Arfuch. Pero más interesante resulta constatar que esos mismos juegos están también presentes en el cine. En *Los rubios* (2003), la directora Albertina Carri hace que la actriz Analía Couceyro interprete a la cineasta Carri. En *El eco de las canciones* (2010), la narración en apariencia autobiográfica de la directora Antonia Rossi es leída, en realidad, por una actriz y nunca vemos a la cineasta en la imagen. En ambos films, y en otros como *El edificio de los chilenos* y *Adieu Général* (Luis Briceño, 2009), hay animaciones, dibujos y collages que sirven para construir una narrativa autobiográfica centrada en el yo, pero desvinculada de una lógica indicial.

Finalmente, insistir únicamente en que la importancia de las diferencias de soporte que se yerguen entre literatura y cine va contra la lógica establecida por los propios films que conforman el objeto de estudio de este artículo. Así como se puede apreciar en ellos una zona intermediaria entre ficción y no ficción, también es posible distinguir otra zona intermediaria: la intermedialidad de sus discursos sobre la memoria. Tanto la enunciación epistolar presente en algunas de estas películas como la

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ Agradezco a mi colega Cristiane Checchia por sus valiosas ponderaciones sobre la cuestión del soporte en los libros de Paloma Vidal.</footnote>
aparición de cartas y otros elementos que remiten a misivas –sobres, sellos– van en esa dirección. Es más, estamos ante narrativas donde la preposición *entre* adquiere una relevancia inusitada: *entre* la ficción y la autobiografía, *entre* lo privado y lo público, *entre* el audiovisual y otros soportes, historia *entre* generaciones, construidas *entre* países. Es por ello que me parece pertinente desarrollar una aproximación analítica atenta a esas transferencias. Se trata, en definitiva, de textos que conforman un *espacio biográfico*, en el sentido de una trama de interrelaciones simbólicas, en la que interactúan diferentes géneros discursivos, medios y soportes que construyen un *horizonte de inteligibilidad* que puede ser interpretado como una “reconfiguración de la subjetividad contemporánea” (Arfuch, 2016: 247).

### 3. Autoetnografías

Para los fines de este estudio, quizás sea pertinente evocar la noción de *autoetnografía* propuesta por Catherine Russell (2013) para films de Chris Marker y Jonas Mekas donde se desarrollan reflexiones audiovisuales que se valen de diferentes tipos de enunciación y pactos de lectura a partir de la primera persona. Según la autora, este tipo de films asume una dimensión *autoetnográfica* en la que convergen lo personal y lo político, lo privado y lo público o, dicho de otra manera, donde las indagaciones sobre lo personal y lo privado, que se logran a partir de una representación de sí mismo, son privilegiadas como la perspectiva desde la cual se especula en torno a procesos históricos que afectan a las sociedades:

> La autobiografía se convierte en etnográfica cuando el cineasta o videoasta entiende que su historia personal está involucrada en formaciones sociales y procesos históricos mayores. [...] En lo que respecta a la politización de lo personal, con frecuencia las identidades son interpretadas a partir de varios discursos culturales, ya sean étnicos, nacionales, sexuales, raciales o de clase. (Russell, 2013: 188)

Esta reflexión me parece particularmente pertinente para aproximarse a toda una corriente cinematográfica latinoamericana contemporánea que ha construido memorias fragmentarias del pasado autoritario a partir de experiencias subjetivas de militantes-víctimas<fnref n="16" /> y de sus hijos o nietos. A pesar de que una de las principales críticas que se le ha hecho a este tipo de producción sea la de hacer prevalecer, de manera egocéntrica, el dolor de una segunda (o tercera) generación por sobre los intentos de comprensión y valorización del compromiso político de sus padres o abuelos<fnref n="17" />, ello no pone en entredicho la dimensión política de estas películas. El trauma personal en todos estos films es el de las víctimas del terror de Estado y está intrínsecamente asociado al pasado dictatorial y a los procesos revolucionarios de sus respectivas sociedades (Bossy y Vergara, 2010: 46). Esa dimensión política del trauma está presente tanto en los films en que los descendientes se identifican con sus padres y abuelos –donde opera una transmisión transgeneracional de la memoria–, como en aquellos donde la

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ Aunque en una dimensión mucho menor también existen films que trabajan desde una dimensión subjetiva la memoria de los perpetradores y sus familiares, siendo el principal ejemplo: *El pacto de Adriana* (Lissette Orozco, Chile, 2017).</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ Ver al respecto, por ejemplo, las críticas de Beatriz Sarlo (2005: 146-157) al film *Los rubios*.</footnote>
militancia de estos últimos produce rechazo, ruptura, distanciamiento y sentimiento de abandono en los primeros<fnref n="18" />. En ambos casos, la adhesión o rechazo a la figura y a la memoria de los padres no se reduce a un plano exclusivamente interpersonal ni puede disociarse de lo político. Incluso cuando la comunicación transgeneracional se ve puesta en entredicho por el silencio de la primera generación ante el trauma, estamos ante “silencios históricos y personales”, como afirma la cineasta Maria Clara Escobar, en el film *Los días con él* (2013), en el que explora la dificil relación que tiene con su padre, el dramaturgo Carlos Henrique Escobar<fnref n="19" />.

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>Imagen 4. German Berger lee la carta a su padre. *Mi vida con Carlos* (Germán Berger, 2009). Fuente: Captura de pantalla.</figcaption></figure>

El clímax de *Mi vida con Carlos* es un buen ejemplo de esa imbricación. El director, Germán Berger y sus tíos, Ricardo y Eduardo, acuden al desierto de Atacama donde, en algún paraje desconocido, yacen los restos del padre del primero. Un plano general filma a los tres hombres mientras se pasean en diferentes direcciones, sin mirarse, en medio del árido paisaje. La siguiente imagen es un primer plano de Berger que lee una desgarradora carta dirigida a su padre. La lectura se le hace difícil, el cineasta suspira, tose, se interrumpe, la voz se le quiebra y llora, mientras la mano de uno de sus acompañantes se posa sobre su hombro (Imagen 4). Toda la escena transcurre en ese mismo plano cerrado que encuadra a Berger, con la excepción de un inserto de uno de sus tíos, que probablemente fue incluido en el montaje para mantener la continuidad. Finalmente, cuando el cineasta-hijo ha terminado la lectura de la carta, los tres se abrazan brevemente y la cámara se aleja, reencuadrándolos frontalmente en un plano general. La última toma de la secuencia en el desierto es

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ Para un análisis pormenorizado de la transmisión transgeneracional de la memoria y de su posible escisión ver el trabajo de Fernando Seliprandy (2015) sobre el film *Los rubios*.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ La fórmula de Maria Clara Escobar fue adoptada como título de la muestra sobre este tipo de producciones latinoamericanas, organizada por Natalia Barrenha y Pablo Piedras, en São Paulo, a comienzos de 2014.</footnote>
un gran plano general, filmado con un teleobjetivo, que muestra a los tres caminando juntos, mientras sus siluetas se recortan comprimidas contra el ocaso e irrumpe con fuerza la música incidental. Todos los elementos de la puesta en escena –el paisaje, la interpretación de los tres, la lectura de la carta en primer plano, el encuadre final– parecen haber sido calculados con bastante cuidado para lograr un fuerte impacto emocional. El elemento central es la autoexposición de Berger, que tiene cariz de exceso.

Esta estrategia discursiva busca premeditadamente darle protagonismo al yo del cineasta. Podría cuestionarse la ausencia de un mayor distanciamiento crítico que ponga en evidencia el carácter de construcción inherente a toda autorrepresentación. Sin embargo, ello no invalida la dimensión política que continúa teniendo el ejercicio de memoria efectuado por Berger y sus tíos, a través de la lectura de la carta-elegía. Es más, la figura de Carlos es legitimada por su hijo como padre y como dirigente político, al tiempo que los vínculos entre dolor privado y exigencia pública de justicia son explícitamente reivindicados en la carta escrita y leída por Germán Berger: “El tiempo ha pasado y la verdad se ha impuesto, la justicia en parte ha llegado y la capacidad de recordar es aún muy leve”.

Cabría preguntarse qué modelizaciones de la memoria ofrecen estos films. De acuerdo con Marcos Napolitano, a pesar de las particularidades de cada caso, en el Cono Sur el trabajo de memoria sobre las dictaduras ha sido elaborado teniendo como modelo dos paradigmas exógenos: la resistencia al nazismo-fascismo, durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y la Shoah:

> La memoria de la resistencia actualiza el sentido del heroísmo y de la acción heroica en la Historia, pues reivindica su lucha en nombre de la humanidad y no solo de la nación o de un *parti pris*. La memoria del Holocausto/Shoah impone la perspectiva de la víctima en el proceso de comprensión del pasado a partir de su testimonio. Amigos se volvieron imperativos ético-políticos que estructuran un régimen de memoria volcado en la reconstrucción de las sociedades atravesadas por procesos de violencia política, como en el caso de las dictaduras latinoamericanas. (2018: 215)

Napolitano agrega que, a partir de esos dos imperativos –el de la víctima y el del miliciano/resistente–, se configura una tipología intermedia de trazos heroicos, que es resistente y víctima al mismo tiempo: “Son héroes porque resistieron al poder opresor, son víctimas porque este poder opresor es tan asimétrico y violento que los conceptos tradicionales de guerra no son pertinentes para comprender y asimilar la violencia del conflicto” (215).

En los films estudiados es perceptible la presencia de los paradigmas del resistente, la víctima y el resistente-víctima, si bien el énfasis que se hace en cada una de ellos varía de acuerdo con el film y con la imagen de la primera generación que se pretende ofrecer. Sin embargo, si los modelos de la Shoah, de la resistencia y de la resistencia-víctima han sido instrumentalizados para construir una memoria sobre la primera generación, se revelan menos fecundos a la hora de explicar cómo la segunda (y tercera) generación construye una memoria de su propia experiencia. Me arriesgaría a decir que lo hace desde la perspectiva de la víctima, pero en una dimensión diferente a la de la Shoah o a la del resistente que cae. Es la perspectiva de la víctima *colateral*, que sufre las consecuencias tanto del terror de Estado como de la resistencia de sus progenitores.

La imagen del niño o de la niña inocente –en los diversos sentidos de la palabra– e indefensa transita toda esta filmografía a partir del recuerdo: es Albertina Carri,
que no perdona a sus padres que antepusieran su militancia a sus vidas; es Macarena Aguiló, víctima de unos padres que la abandonaron en Cuba para combatir a la dictadura de Pinochet; es Germán Berger, a quien la dictadura deja huérfano de padre; es Flávia Castro, a quien su madre le confiesa que ella y su hermano eran un estorbo para la lucha clandestina. Ahora bien, sin pretender negar la legitimidad de las reinvindicaciones de la segunda generación, desde el punto de vista de la elaboración de una memoria del pasado histórico reciente, el riesgo de la perspectiva de la víctima colateral radica en dejar de lado un análisis de la historicidad de los conflictos aborizados, en aras de una emotividad que puede llevar a equipar los daños causados por las dictaduras con los infligidos por sus opositores.

## 4. Los elementos epistolares en los films y sus hibridaciones

Films estructurados como epístolas; cartas leídas por una voz over o, en ocasiones, por la voz en off de alguien que permanece fuera de campo o, incluso, leídas delante de la cámara; misivas rescatadas del baúl de los recuerdos de una familia o de algún archivo público, la relación con diversos elementos epistolares no es uniforme en las películas que analizamos. Tal y como estudia Lourdes Monterrubio (2018), la presencia epistolar en el cine tiene, al menos, tres modos de inserción: la carta al interior del relato, el filmcarta, en el que la enunciación asume la forma de una misiva, y los films construidos a partir de diferentes epístolas. Las tres grandes categorías pueden encontrar hibridaciones, como ocurre, por ejemplo, en Mi vida con Carlos, donde el relato está estructurado como una gran carta al padre muerto, pero hay espacio para numerosas cartas escritas, en el pasado, por la madre del director, Carmen Hertz, que ella misma lee en voz over. Por último, las epístolas también irrumpen en la imagen como testimonios escritos por alguno de los personajes. Lo mismo sucede en Diario de una búsqueda/Lettres et révolutions donde, como se ha visto, el film-diario va de la mano con la lectura de las cartas del padre de Flávia Castro, a cargo de la directora y de su hermano, Joca. La decisión de que ambos sean los encargados de revelar el contenido de las cartas sirve para reforzar los vínculos sanguíneos y afectivos con el remitente. Una estrategia similar está presente en El edificio de los chilenos, donde son leídas tanto cartas que Margarita Marchi, la madre de la realizadora, le escribía a su hija, a la que había dejado en Cuba para irse a combatir la dictadura chilena, como cartas de la pequeña Aguiló sobre su experiencia en la isla.

Las dos primeras formas propuestas por Monterrubio –la carta dentro del film y el film como carta– son las más fácilmente distinguibles en la producción latinoamericana contemporánea, mientras que el relato coral es prácticamente inexistente. Por importante que sea el lugar que se le otorga a la aparición de otras voces epistolares dentro de la narración, estas son secundarias con respecto al testimonio subjetivo que estructura el relato y que no es otro sino el del cineasta. En ese sentido, si la asertividad del documental clásico ha dado paso en este tipo de films a una apuesta por la duda, la ambigüedad y la subjetividad, curiosamente ello no se ha traducido en una crisis de la unicidad del enunciador. El cineasta parece dudar de todo, menos de que su perspectiva subjetiva sea la más pertinente para encarar el tema que tiene entre manos y que, en virtud de ello, debe ser privilegiada. Detrás y delante de la cámara, el cineasta reivindica su subjetividad asumiendo una interpretación fuertemente protagónica que encuentra sus raíces en la concepción del autor cinematográfico. Por otro lado, los films que se interesan por tratar al mismo tiempo varias historias asociadas a la segunda generación
no han explorado las capacidades expresivas del film-diario o de la enunciación epistolar, optando por un formato bastante más convencional, que gira en torno a un coro de “cabezas hablantes” (Seliprandy, 2018: 100).<fnref n="20" />

La carta como objeto es omnipresente en estos films y tiene una importancia similar a las fotografías o los dibujos infantiles encontrados en el baúl de los recuerdos. Dentro de esta dimensión archivística, es un vestigio, un indicio, un documento que sirve para reconstruir fragmentariamente el pasado y –más importante aún– sus voces. A la vez, quien lo conserva lo hace porque le atribuye un valor patrimonial, monumentalizándolo, transformándolo en documento-monumento, como diría Jacques Le Goff (2013), de la memoria transgeneracional. Es por ello que su materialidad suele ser explorada; la carta aparece en cámara como prueba fragmentaria del pasado, amarillenta, marcada por los residuos que sobre ella ha imprimido el tiempo (Imagen 5). Esa materialidad puede testimoniar incluso las condiciones de clandestinidad y la traumática relación entre padres e hijos. Es el caso de las misivas ocultas en microfilms que militantes chilenos les enviaban a los hijos que habían dejado en Cuba, como se muestra en *El edificio de los chilenos* (Imagen 6). Cuando se trata de cartas grabadas en cintas de casete –presentes en films como *Elena y Abuelos*, la atmósfera sonora de ese formato, sus ruidos e imperfecciones, es lo rescatado.

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>Imagen 5. Las huellas del paso del tiempo en la carta. *Diário de uma busca/Lettres et révolutions* (Flávia Castro, 2010). Fuente: Captura de pantalla.</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ Empleo la expresión *cabezas hablantes* porque es la traducción más cercana a “cabeças falantes” utilizado en portugués por Seliprandy. A su vez, me parece preferible a “bustos parlantes” –este último de uso corriente en España– porque semánticamente se aproximarse más al original inglés: “talking heads”.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_31.png" /><figcaption>Imagen 6. Cartas en microfilms. *El edificio de los chilenos* (Macarena Aguiló, 2010).</figcaption></figure>

Fuente: Captura de pantalla.

La carta forma parte del “cúmulo de ruinas” imposible de recomponer, que forman el pasado, según la célebre fórmula de Walter Benjamin (1994: 226). Su función de comunicar un remitente y un destinatario separados por el tiempo y el espacio se ve drásticamente magnificada, pues como ruina del pasado, conecta épocas diferentes y permite un diálogo fragmentario de los muertos con los vivos. También hace posible encarar en la actualidad las decisiones tomadas en el pasado, confrontar el yo de hoy con el yo de ayer, como le ocurre a la madre de Macarena Aguiló, que tras leer sus propias cartas cuestiona su decisión de dejar a su hija al cuidado de terceros, en Cuba. (Llanos, 2014: 222).

Habría que añadir que los archivos familiares permiten una conexión de carácter afectivo con el público. La reflexión de la artista audiovisual Catalina Sosa sobre el cine expandido y la videoinstalación que recurre a archivos personales es también aplicable a las cartas en su dimensión archivística: “Entendemos entonces que se produce, a partir del contenido archivístico familiar de la obra y por su inherente existencia como producto de un lenguaje, una fuerte identificación entre el artista/narrador/personaje y el espectador que asiste al momento audiovisual instalado” (2017: 88).

Hay una última cuestión que me parece necesario dilucidar. El yo del remitente de los films-cartas es siempre una construcción, de la misma manera que el ejercicio de memoria que lleva a cabo también lo es. Pero no solo eso, el destinatario también ha sido, en gran medida, construido por el remitente. Ello es del todo evidente en películas con destinatarios ficticios. Sin embargo, también hay una construcción en el caso de destinatarios que no pertenecen al campo de la ficción. En las cartas elegiacas filmadas por Germán Berger y Petra Costa, el destinatario, del que los separa la muerte, es construido a partir de vestigios que son resignificados por los directores. Ahora bien, si en el caso de Costa entran en juego los recuerdos de la infancia –perdió a su hermana a los siete años–, en el de Berger esto es im-
posible, pues su padre fue asesinado cuando él aún era un bebé. La construcción de un padre y, por consiguiente, de una vida con Carlos dependen completamente de los indicios encontrados (y monumentalizados) y del testimonio de quienes lo conocieron. Esos restos adquieren una dimensión aún más significativa, pues substituyen de forma parcial, precaria e imperfecta a los restos que les han sido negados a Germán Berger y su familia, imposibilitando cerrar el trabajo de duelo: la dictadura hizo desaparecer el cuerpo de Carlos Berger en el desierto de Atacama. Ahora bien, resulta significativo que durante el trabajo de elaboración creativa de un destinatario muerto, Germán Berger y Petra Costa se vuelvan sobre sí mismos, mimetizándose con el familiar fallecido, explorando el parecido físico que los aproxima. Costa llega incluso a cortarse y teñirse el pelo como su hermana y a imitar el tono de su voz al leer algunas de sus cartas (Dantas, 2016: 106) (Imagen 7). Esto último es significativo, pues llega a resultar difícil distinguir la cinta de cassette graba por Elena de la grabación actual hecha por Petra. Berger también asume la voz de su padre, el día de Pascua, al escribirles una carta a sus hijas haciéndose pasar por el abuelo Carlos. De esta manera, la construcción del destinatario lleva de regreso hacia el emisor. Cabría preguntarse si ello significa el triunfo del sujeto o la imposibilidad de ir más allá de sus límites.

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /><figcaption>Imagen 7. Petra Costa con corte de pelo y maquillaje similar a los de Elena Costa. Elena (Petra Costa, 2012). Fuente: Captura de pantalla.</figcaption></figure>

## 5. Conclusión

La enunciación epistolar, el film-diario y sus hibridaciones son algunas de las principales formulaciones de las películas en primera persona, dirigidas por familiares de víctimas de las violaciones de los Derechos Humanos, perpetradas por las dictaduras latinoamericanas de los años setenta y ochenta. En todos esos films la subjetividad reivindicada por los cineastas asume un carácter autobiográfico y ensayístico que
lleva a la identificación del realizador con el remitente epistolar. Pero esos films no operan aisladamente, no son únicamente expresión subjetiva, sino que participan activamente de los debates sobre la memoria personal y colectiva del pasado autoritario. Por consiguiente, integran una red de intercambios culturales y circulaciones transnacionales que trascienden las fronteras del campo cinematográfico y de la que forman parte otras expresiones culturales, artísticas y académicas.

El auge de este tipo de producción cinematográfica, a finales de la década pasada y comienzos de la presente, coincide con un momento en que en países como Argentina, Chile y Brasil se agudizaba el debate público sobre las leyes de amnistía, obediencia debida y punto final, se iniciaban procesos judiciales contra los perpetradores y, desde el poder público, se creaban comisiones de memoria y reparación<fnref n="21" />. Aunque la falta de una perspectiva temporal mayor dificulte un análisis global de la producción, pareciera que en los últimos cuatro años el tipo de films que han sido estudiados en este artículo ha entrado en declive. En la segunda mitad del presente decenio, el giro conservador que han experimentado los gobiernos de esos tres países –particularmente drástico en el caso de Brasil– se ha visto acompañado de una ruptura del endeble consenso social y político entorno a la condena (en la esfera pública) de las violaciones de los Derechos Humanos. Esa ruptura tiene como correlato un revisionismo del pasado autoritario, vinculado al auge de discursos y proyectos de ultraderecha. Ya en 2015, Marcos Napolitano hacía un diagnóstico de esa ruptura incipiente en el caso brasileño, que en lo sucesivo se vería confirmada y acrecentada:

> El hecho que nos importa es que esta nueva coyuntura político-ideológica-partidista debilitó un espacio socio-político (institucional y simbólico) que sustentaba a la memoria hegemónica del régimen militar, espacio que siempre fue conflictivo, pero en el que no se dudaba en defender la profundización de la democracia, el protagonismo de la sociedad civil y la condena del autoritarismo de derechas. Al parecer, la memoria hegemónica cimentada en este espacio no se ha diluido totalmente, pero ha enfrentado cuestionamientos, teniendo que repartir el espacio público con memorias inorgánicas y difusas, claramente de extrema derecha, que llegaron a esbozar reediciones patéticas de la “marcha de la Familia” y de manifestaciones por el “regreso de los militares”, eventos impensables antes de 2014/2015. (2015: 33)

La dependencia financiera de muchos de estos films con respecto a concursos y fondos de fomento públicos puede poner su continuidad en riesgo, en una nueva coyuntura en la que los nuevos gobiernos se han mostrado muy poco interesados en sustentar este tipo de memorias de opositores de la dictadura o víctimas de ella. En el futuro próximo podrá comprobarse si estas producciones han alcanzado una fase de saturación y declive o si buscarán nuevas estrategias de subsistencia, para hacer que nuevas cartas y diarios cinematográficos contesten desde la subjetividad al revisionismo neoconservador.

<footnote n="21">²¹ Podrían mencionarse los informes de la Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura (2004) y de la Comisión Asesora Presidencial para la Calificación de Detenidos Desaparecidos, Ejecutados Políticos y Víctimas de Prisión Política y Tortura (2011) y la creación del Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos (2010) en Chile; la anulación, en 2003, de las leyes de Obediencia Debida y Punto Final en Argentina; el inicio de los trabajos de la Comisión Nacional de la Verdad, en 2012, y la entrega de su informe final en 2014, en Brasil.</footnote>
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# Epistolarity, Voice, and Reconciliation in Recent North African Documentaries<fnref n="1" />

Sheila Petty<fnref n="2" />

Submitted: 05th September 2019 / Approved: 26th October 2019

**Abstract.** This essay takes as its starting point Laura Rascaroli’s notion of “epistolarity as argumentation” to probe how North African filmmakers Habiba Djahnine, Drifa Mezenner, and Jawad Rhalib deploy the letter in their documentary films as a strategy to come to terms with personal alienation at a specific point in their national histories. In *Letter to my Sister* (2006), *I Lived in the Absence Twice* (2011) and *The Turtles’ Song: a Moroccan Revolution* (2013), working within reflexive and performative modes of documentary, the filmmakers become protagonists of their own projects and find their personal voice after years of repression or exile. Thus, they ultimately connect their voice with others of the nation as strategy of reconciliation. The essay argues that these first-person documentaries use the epistolary device to allow the filmmakers to rediscover their own voices and place within their own national histories of Algeria and Morocco.

**Key words:** documentary; epistolarity; reflexivity; performativity; voice; argumentation

## [es] Epistolaridad, voz y reconciliación en documentales norteafricanos recientes

**Resumen.** Este artículo toma como punto de partida la noción de Laura Rascaroli de “epistolaridad como argumentación” para analizar cómo los cineastas del norte de África Habiba Djahnine, Drifa Mezenner y Jawad Rhalib utilizan la carta en sus documentales como una estrategia para afrontar la alienación personal en un momento específico de sus historias nacionales. En *Lettre à ma sœur* (2006), *J’ai habité l’absence deux fois* (2011) y *Le Chant des tortues, une révolution marocaine* (2013), trabajando según los modos reflexivos y performativos del documental, los cineastas se convierten en protagonistas de sus proyectos y encuentran su propia voz tras años de represión o exilio. De este modo, finalmente conectan su voz con otras del país como estrategia de reconciliación. El artículo sostiene que estos documentales en primera persona instrumentalizan el dispositivo epistolar para permitir a los cineastas redescubrir sus propias voces y situarlas en sus respectivas historias nacionales de Argelia y Marruecos.

**Palabras clave:** documental; epistolaridad; reflexividad; performatividad; voz; argumentación

## [fr] Épistolarité, voix et réconciliation dans des documentaires nord-africains récents

<footnote n="1">¹ I wish to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their support of this research.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² University of Regina (Canada)
E-mail: Sheila.Petty@uregina.ca</footnote>
**Résumé.** Cet essai s'inspire de la notion d'« épistolarité comme argumentation» développée par Laura Rascaroli pour examiner comment les cinéastes nord-africaines Habiba Djahnine, Drifa Mezenner et Jawad Rhalib utilisent la lettre dans leurs films documentaires comme stratégie permettant de faire face à une aliénation personnelle à un point spécifique dans leurs histoires nationales. Dans *Lettre à ma sœur* (2006), *J'ai habité l'absence deux fois* (2011) et *Le Chant des tortues, une révolution marocaine* (2013), en travaillant selon des modes documentaires réfléchis et performatifs, les cinéastes deviennent protagonistes de leurs propres projets et trouvent leur voix personnelle après des années de répression ou d'exil. Ainsi, ils relient finalement leur voix à d'autres du pays en tant que stratégie de réconciliation. L'essai soutient que ces documentaires à la première personne utilisent le dispositif épistolaire pour permettre aux cinéastes de redécouvrir leurs propres voix et de se situer dans leurs propres histoires nationales d'Algérie et du Maroc

**Mots clé :** documentaire ; épistolarité ; réflexivité ; performativité ; voix ; argumentation

**Summary.** 1. Introduction. 2. 2. *Letter to my Sister* (2006) by Habiba Djahnine. 3. *I Lived in the Absence Twice* (2011) by Drifa Mezenner. 4. *The Turtles' Song: a Moroccan Revolution* (2013) by Jawad Rhalib. 5. Conclusion. 6. References.

**How to cite this article.** Petty, Sheila (2019). Epistolarity, Voice, and Reconciliation in Recent North African Documentaries. *Área Abierta*. *Revista de comunicación audiovisual y publicitaria* 19 (3), 347-361. https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/arab.65470

# 1. Introduction

Epistolary enunciation, in all its expressive forms, has long been a cornerstone of identity construction in human existence. Though often referring to letter fiction, epistolarity has taken a firm place in film narratives, with letters functioning to either serve the plot or as voiceover strategies. In her work on epistolarity and essay film-making, Laura Rascaroli discusses how certain epistemological strategies germane to prose have been mobilized by filmmakers to function in new ways in film. Her focus on film's formal properties within the essay film provides new insights for “epistolarity and lyricism as argumentation” (2017: 143). Building on the work of Hamid Naficy, she sees these as “disjunctive strategies” that open up “essayistic” spaces of filmic thinking that are not confined to any one genre or specific style (162). Films expressing thinking, and typically delivered by voiceover, are concerned with challenging established notions of reality and foregrounding the constructed nature of the film text itself. This reflexive impulse is often embodied in first-person narration with the filmmaker calling attention to the cinematic apparatus.

Since its publication in 2001, Hamid Naficy's *An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking* has served as the key reference for understanding how epistolarity functions in specific diasporic and exilic postcolonial filmmaking contexts. He is especially concerned with how epistolarity works within an *accented* context in which “exile and epistolarity are constitutively linked because both are driven by distance, separation, absence, and loss and by the desire to bridge the multiple gaps” (2001: 101). He further argues that no matter what form an epistle embodies, it represents a metaphoric displaced desire and to be with another person or “to reimagine an elsewhere and other times” (101). This implies a sense of recovery – of something lost or repressed – and this makes Naficy’s work fundamental when thinking of films
that arise from expatriation and displacement of the filmmaker who works in alter-
native production contexts, with migration movement, and exile as common themes
(20). Yet, Naficy himself has argued that “the definition of the epistolary mode must
be significantly altered” to accommodate new forms and modes of screen media
(132). This opens up avenues within both fiction and nonfiction filmmaking to look
closely at the “structured articulations of the filmmaker” (Ruby, 1988: 75). Stories
told, and arguments unfolded, from specific points of view, provide many ways of
knowing and understanding histories.

Rascaroli’s work provides many entry points for taking Naficy’s arguments in fur-
ther directions and thinking about “epistolarity as argumentation” in cinema (2017:
143). She draws on the work of Farocki and Hüser (2004) to consider discourses as
“a form of narrative” and thus not just about “narrative voice” (162, 144). In terms of
essay filmmaking, Rascaroli maintains that narrative is “a fundamental component
of the argumentation” in essay films (162). She also makes the monumental obser-
vation that “the position from which the narrative emanates in epistolary cinema is
one of distance” (146). This notion of distance in epistolary films provokes a series
of questions around how personal and political histories are staged within time and
space and the means of discourse strategies or cinematic devices employed to create
meaning. Rascaroli furthers her study of the essay film by exploring how counter-
narration functions to produce lyricism through fragmentation and gaps, which
evoke meaning through affect rather than “story or rational discourse” (144-145).
The poetic can be found in the argument and emotion is possible in the documentary
form, often considered the paradigm of objectivity and realistic representation.

Expressing reality, or the real, has arguably been the cornerstone of documentary
filmmaking since the birth of cinema. However, questions of mediation, voice, point
of view, modes and genres, authorship, and representational sovereignty have preoc-
cupied filmmakers and theorists alike through the years. According to Bill Nichols,
the 1960s witnessed the domination of observational and participatory modes of
documentary whereby filmmaker actively and directly engaged with subject in the
participatory and acted as neutral observer in the observational. Films in this latter
style had limitations since both the historical past and the filmmaker’s stylistic signa-
ture were mostly “subordinated to the subject matter” (Nichols, 2016: xii). With the
evolution of technology and smaller and more portable and affordable equipment,
documentary forms have transformed over the years, becoming much more reflexive
and performative in style and form – to the point where some consider “first person
accounts” to be as widespread as avant-garde art film (Ulfsdotter, 2018: 144).

In a recent essay on African documentary film, Rachel Gabara astutely outlines
how African films have been excluded from most studies of the essay film (2019:
366). The testimonial and reflexive nature of much African documentary cinema and
docu-fiction make “a powerful argument against the exclusion of African film from
the documentary canon and from studies of reflexive filmmaking” (368). Gabara
further argues that “African essay films, both intimate and political”, are frequent-
ly made “from a position of partial exile” (368). The first person cinematic voice
embedded in the structure of much reflexive documentary film takes on complex
inflections in the African context. The singular *I* is often subsumed in the *we* or *us*,
connecting “inward and outward gazes” (Renov, 2004: 69). The autobiographical is
rooted in the local and the national and personal histories are woven into national
constructs, exploding the static frame.
This essay aims to probe how three North African documentary filmmakers deploy the letter as a device to mesh together the personal and the political and come to terms with personal alienation at a specific point in their national histories. Working within reflexive and performative modes of documentary, the filmmakers become participants within their own projects and find their personal voice after years of repression or exile and ultimately connect this voice with others of the nation as strategies of reconciliation.

## 2. *Letter to my Sister* (2006) by Habiba Djahnine

Algerian documentary filmmaker Habiba Djahnine was born in 1968 in Tizi Ouzou. She has directed several documentary films and written poetry, short stories and magazine articles. She is the co-founder of l'Association Kaïna Cinéma and Association for Cinema and Memory. She has organized and curated film programs for several international film festivals, including Rencontres Cinématographiques de Béjaïa, and at the Goethe Institute. Her documentaries reflect modern Algerian society since the Civil War and propose solutions for the collective development of the nation. In 2007, she founded the documentary film school, *Béjaïa Doc*, where she trains Algerian youth in all aspects of documentary film production from script to screen to distribution.

In her 2006 documentary, *Letter to my Sister (Lettre à ma sœur)*, Habiba Djahnine pays homage to her sister Nabila who was assassinated by two men in a drive-by shooting during protest marches on February 15, 1995 in Tizi-Ouzou, capital city of the Kabylia region of Algeria. President of the Algerian association, *Thighri N'Tmettouth* (Cry of Women), Nabila was a staunch promoter of women's rights as well as an advocate of the Berber (Kabyle) language and culture. In the film, Habiba returns to Tizi-Ouzou to speak with the people her sister knew and worked with as well as those who were touched by her advocacy. As she drives her car through the picturesque Kabyle mountain landscapes, she constructs a letter to her deceased sister to counteract the years of silence and distance since her death. Habiba's letter-film to Nabila becomes a response, in images and words, to a letter Nabila sent to Habiba in 1994, in which she describes the tumultuous state and disintegration of the Algerian nation following the 1991 repression of the Islamic Salvation Front by the ruling National Liberation Front during national parliamentary elections. Various armed groups emerged and carried out a campaign of terror and violence against government supporters. Journalists, artists, writers, activists and foreigners were all targeted during the ten-year period (until 2002) now known as the Black Decade, which witnessed as many as 200,000 fatalities.

The challenge for Habiba is how to name and describe (speak about) the violence that took her sister and how to resurrect an active voice to speak to her dead sister after so many years of silence and terror. Naficy contends that the very structure, organization, themes and visual style of accented filmmakers' works transform “displaced subjects into active agents of their own emplacement” (2001, 98). With Djahnine, this applies especially to her themes and structures of emotion that are built into the works' mise-en-scene and but that also arise from the viewer's engagement with them.
In an interstitial or disjunctive context (to use Rascaroli’s terminology), the artist transposes the event or moment to another “displaced” space, or “interstitial moment” as Homi Bhabha would have it (1994: 269). Naficy extends the meaning of being interstitial as, “being located at the intersection of the local and the global” mediating between disparate categories (1999: 134). Subjectivity and identity are determined in these interstitial moments, at the interface of the local and the global, the personal and the political. I would extend the frame of this concept arguing that Djahnine’s film demonstrates an innovative blending of the autobiographical, performative, accented, and documentary to create a personal relationship between artist and viewer, thus demanding an active audience in the process of meaning making.

In concert with this theoretical foundation, Djahnine firmly anchors her letter-film within the Algerian historical frame, measuring distance in terms of memory and emotion. It took her five years after Nabila’s death to begin her letter-film, and then another five years to shoot and edit, all the while reflecting on the necessity of speaking up about silenced histories. Habiba’s voice-over shapes the narrative, but she also appears on-screen reminiscing with family and friends as she films her letter to her sister.

In *Letter to my Sister* Djahnine uses landscape shots for moments of pause between scenes, and they are meant to situate the viewer and introduce the location of the following scene. Each scene is bookended by a landscape, often mountainous, that recalls the area where the sisters grew up and were educated. The very first shot of the film is a ten second extreme long shot of a cemetery with a serene mountain vista in the background. The filmmaker then cuts to medium and medium close-up shots of herself and her colleague and cameraperson being greeted by two local men in front of a building, the cemetery and mountains still visible in the background. The men explain that the building was a school where Nabila gave a lecture to a packed room of women. She had promised to return, but unfortunately destiny took over and later, the school was transformed into a mosque with a prayer room. This discussion sets up a mystery for the viewer – who are we talking about? Habiba immediately explains that she is making a film about Nabila and will be back the following weekend to interview the local women. Habiba undercuts the mystery to a certain extent, but the viewer is still left wondering who Nabila was, and thus the quest begins for the viewer to unravel this mystery.

After the local men enter the mosque to pray, the camera fixes its *gaze* on the building for ten seconds, ending the scene. Habiba thus establishes her sister Nabila as the frame of the film. Nabila *opens* the film as subject and returns to *close* the film in the final extreme close-up shots as she discusses how “women have always fought back.”<fnref n="3" /> By opening her film with images of a mosque and prayer room, Habiba forces the viewer to pay their respects to Nabila’s soul and to think about atonement for past sins. The camera’s/Habiba’s *gaze* is meant for Nabila – who would immediately recognize the landscape – words and voice-over are not always necessary in the letter-film, yet when they are used, they are of “central importance” to the film (Naficy, 2001: 120).

This film for and about her sister acts as a form of shriving of trauma, violence and silence, and an excavation of the repressed, the ignored, the put away, the oc-

<footnote n="3">³ Translations of original quotations are mine.</footnote>
cluded... a memorialization process that Djahnine herself calls “dis-alienation.” Here, this is not about the epistolary crossing of physical borders but about communication between the living and the dead. Nabila was killed in a drive-by shooting and interestingly, Habiba begins narrating the letter-film to Nabila in her car driving in the mountains and into the cities as though Nabila is with her in the car (Image 1):

> Ten years after your assassination and it is only today that I can revisit those moments. To speak about you is to speak about all the women in the world who refuse to give up their dignity [...] How can we live with these wounds? How can we vomit our fear and hate of the assassins? I can barely distinguish mourning from madness. Into what kind of silent abyss have they thrown you?

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /><figcaption>Image 1. *Letter to my Sister* (Habiba Djahnine, 2006). Source: Screenshot.</figcaption></figure>

Habiba's voice-over is eventually accompanied by the melancholy chords of a stringed instrument, “I am taking you to Béjaïa. Our parents are waiting for us there. What can I say? I am speaking to you.” There is a disjunctive relationship between voice, interiority and identity in the film, which Stefanie Van de Peer has previously argued in the case of Jocelyne Saab's films, is simultaneously self-reflexive and non-synchronous (2018: 78). This speaks to the ambiguity of the film's title, *Letter to my Sister*. Which letter and which sister? We do not see Habiba actually writing a letter and reading it. We assume she is responding to a letter written to her by Nabila the year before her assassination. We also assume that because she is the filmmaker, she is composing the letter in her mind and narrating it to her dead sister as she drives through the mountains. The narration is very self-reflexive and signifies her painful memories of her sister's demise, and yet, the way the letter is spoken over the driving point-of-view shots raises “ontological doubt” about temporality, location, and voice in the film (Van de Peer, 2018: 78). Is Habiba driving as she makes her film in the present, or is this the journey with
Nabila's coffin ten years ago? Habiba's voice-over provides an ideological thread to the image track's point-of-view driving shots through mountains and towns. The spatial and temporal points of reference are her sister and their relationship, from which a melancholic form of poetry is born.

Oral cultural expressions such as poetry, proverbs and songs are very important to the Kabyle culture of Algeria, to which the Djahnine family belong. Habiba visits the elderly Kabyle women who knew Nabila and they prepare a meal for her and dedicate a song to her that they improvise on the spot in memory of Nabila. The women, for whom poetic creation is spontaneous, transform the words into an homage to Habiba for keeping the memory of her sister Nabila alive: “O my soul, improvise a poem. For her, so dear to my heart. Today her sister has come. Listen to our message. She has come to ask, what her sister did. Her soul is in paradise. She who stands up for women’s rights; Today we remember her, as if she is here with us” (Image 2) As the final words are sung, the image track shifts from medium shots of the small group of women singing to a long shot of a solitary Kabyle woman wending her way down a road into the background. The shot lasts ten seconds, allowing the viewer the time to ponder the significance of the women’s words. The singular and the collective are sutured as Habiba is simultaneously spectator and recipient of the homage (Maazouzi, 2013: 4-5).

<figure><img src="image_34.png" /><figcaption>Image 2. *Letter to my Sister* (Habiba Djahnine, 2006). Source: Screenshot.</figcaption></figure>

In a recent article on the work of Habiba Djahnine, Djemaa Maazouzi argues that as the village women improvise the *achewiq* (song improvised in memory of someone) their collective voice joins with the other women's voices in the film to provide a “polyphonic” description of the incredible heritage that Nabila bestowed on the women (2013: 5). Maazouzi contends that the *achewiq* acts as a form of suture to the pain caused by the assassination: physical pain suffered by Nabila and emotional and psychological pain suffered by Habiba, her family and friends. The present, embodied in the women's performance for the camera, is infused
with the ancestral past. Thus, orality, and oral tradition in the case of *Letter to my Sister* impact the letter-film's "formal, stylistic, and thematic systems" (Naficy, 2001: 121). The film ends with tributes by women friends and family members – a collective response to Nabila's legacy and a means for all to participate in the letter-film to *my sister*. The film ends in extreme close-ups of Nabila gazing outward at the camera in direct address to all Algerians as she exclaims that women are also human beings!

### 3. *I Lived in the Absence Twice* (2011) by Drifa Mezenner

Algerian director, Drifa Mezenner has used documentary form with infusions of epistolary inflections to create a lyric essay film that is both personal and political. Rascaroli writes that “far less critical attention has been paid to the definition of the lyric essay film than to the literary one” (2017: 156). She argues that “poetic fragmentariness,” reflexivity, metaphor and “creative nonfiction” are all potential features of the lyric essay film (156). These were all present to some extent in *Letter to my Sister*. Mezenner studied graphic arts and English literature, and works as a graphic designer. She was a student of Habiba Djahnine in the Béjaïa Documentary Workshop in 2011, and under her guidance she produced her first short film, *I Lived in the Absence Twice* (*J'ai habité l'absence deux fois*), which has been selected for several international film festivals and has won awards. *I Lived in the Absence Twice* deals with the impact of absence on the filmmaker, and the effects of absence and disaffection on Algerian youth following the Civil War, as well as on Mezenner's own family (Lamri, 2014).

The film is set in Algiers where Mezenner revisits her old neighbourhood of Kouba to excavate memories of the past. Her brother Sofiane is central to the narration of separation, pain and absence because he is the family member who, in 1992, had fled the country's turmoil during the Civil War and immigrated to Britain in search of a better life. Details of his departure – legal or illegal – are left out of the film, as though the filmmaker is deliberately creating several layers of absence. These layers of absence become layers of distance, in Rascaroli's terms (2017: 163).

The film opens with an extreme low angle shot of the sky as birds fly around. The camera pans down to focus on trees and a garden. A blunt cut transitions the image to a medium shot of a man in the garden with his back to the camera. He walks toward the background, still refusing to face the camera as Mezenner asks him in voice-over, “Dad, what has changed since 1992?” He keeps walking, refusing to speak or address the camera. She continues, “You, who made the liberation war. After experiencing the Dark Decade, how do you find Algeria now? Is the situation better than before? Dad?!” He finally retorts, “Do not talk to me.” He only turns around to face the camera when he exclaims that the liberation war was not the same as the civil war. He is bitter about Sofiane's exile and about Algeria's current situation. When Mezenner explains that he was seeking freedom, her father retorts, “Freedom is the one you build with your family.” After they share a joke about exile, the filmmaker adds a layer of distance – a reflective stance, as she frames her father in a medium shot facing off-screen right and addresses the spectator: “This is my father [...] and the girl behind the camera is me: Drifa.” As she pronounces her name, the image cuts to a close-up of her directly addressing the camera/spectator. She continues, “I was born and grew up in Kouba (El
Kobba) and am still living there.” These close-ups give way to images of the neighborhood as Mezenner explains that many youth from this area emigrated to the United Kingdom. Her brother Sofiane is one of them and he has been gone for almost twenty years. During this period, the two leaders of the Islamist political party, Islamic Salvation Front, preached in the neighborhood's main mosque, attracting many spectators from all over Algiers who were disaffected by national state discourse. Drifa's voice-over continues as she presents her other brother, Hamoudi and her mother (who is still waiting for Sofiane) and explains that the year Sofiane left is the year they moved to another house in another neighborhood. Like Habiba Djahnine, Mezenner returns to her childhood neighborhood to excavate memories.

Mezenner explains that when she informed Sofiane about her film project, he did not want to be filmed (like the rest of the family) and preferred to write her a letter in English explaining his exile. As he begins his narration in accented English, swirling images of treetops dominate the frame as though signifying turbulence and chaos – a metaphor for 1990s Algeria: “Sister, in order to do my story justice, you have to go back a little. To understand the present time and thus conclude some sort of picture, I’m going to tell you the story as I remember it. But let us say, as unclear as it was, we were completely oblivious…” As he pronounces the word, “Oblivious” Mezenner’s voice-over in Arabic is superimposed over Sofiane’s, adding a further layer of distance/absence as the spectator is forced to negotiate between the two competing voices in different languages. She explains: “In his letter, Sofiane told me what he still remembers. He said we were completely oblivious to how fortunate it was.” As she continues the narration, Sofiane’s voice disappears, and she continues to summarize his letter. Sofiane’s voice returns in the sequence of close-up shots of his mother making bread. He confesses that he remembers everything very clearly as if it was yesterday. He had planned everything carefully but could not tell his family. At breakfast, his mother gave him fifty dinars and he left Algeria for a better life. His letter continues later in the film, laid over an image track of point-of-view shots of Mezenner driving through Kouba. He concludes (in English) that until Algerians stop leaving for a better life, “then I can tell you Algeria is back,” as Mezenner simultaneously speaks the same words in Arabic. In a later sequence, she addresses him directly in voice-over while his image disappears from the frame (Image 3): “Sofiane, you migrated and were exiled abroad. We stayed here and were exiled inside us. Your absence made those who are present seem absent.” All the seasons passed, “and me, I lived in the absence twice.” The film ends as Mezenner’s mother composes a poem for the absent Sofiane. She sits facing the camera in direct address medium shots. Her voice-over sings the poem as she sits in silence and the screen fades to black and the credits roll (Image 4). The melancholic tone is highly reminiscent of that in the achewiq addressed to Habiba Djahnine and dedicated to her sister, Nabila.

The layering of absences and use of voice-over recall Laura Marks’ theoretical model of enfolding (forgetting or hiding) and unfolding (remembering) of knowledge. According to Marks: “the past persists, enfolded in virtual form, and some of its facets may unfold to some degree in the present” (2015: 11). Stefanie Van de Peer takes Marks’ idea further by suggesting that “sensitive information [...] can be revealed and liberated, or unfolded through the act of ‘listening’ and ‘seeing’ in the audio-visual art of documentary” (2018: 25). Mezenner employs aspects of epistolarity such as the voice-over narration of letter reading to enfold the reasons for Sofiane’s
departure and exile, but also to unfold her own memories of the past twenty years.
Interestingly, the past is exhumed while visually depicting images of the present.

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /><figcaption>Image 3 and 4. *I Lived in the Absence Twice* (Drifa Mezenner, 2011).</figcaption></figure>

Source: Screenshot.

The personal and the political are carefully intertwined and raise important issues
of generational conflict in contemporary Algerian society. Drifa expresses her per-
sonal experience of the civil war and that of her siblings and friends in contrast to
her father's anger and silence regarding Sofiane's choice to immigrate to a perceived
easier (although clandestine) life in England. Drifa's personal history, like that of
Sofiane and the rest of her family members, is part of the larger political and historical tapestry of the nation.

### 4. The Turtles' Song: a Moroccan Revolution (2013) by Jawad Rhalib

In a somewhat similar vein as that of Mezenner's reflexive documentary, Moroccan-Belgian filmmaker Jawad Rhalib has used documentary form for explorations of Moroccan history and culture, providing exposure through cinematic expression to those who have been silenced by history and politics. Born in Morocco in 1965, Rhalib grew up in Belgium and lives and works in both countries. He both writes for journals and newspapers and directs socially-conscious films focussed on human rights issues, globalization, and sustainable development issues. His feature documentary, *The Turtles' Song, a Moroccan Revolution (Le Chant des tortues, une révolution marocaine, 2013)* is set against the backdrop of the Movement of February 20, 2011, when the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt had spread to Morocco. As a result, Moroccans protested for dignity, freedom of speech, social and political change, and an end to the culture of fear which had permeated the kingdom since, and especially during, the Lead Years of King Hassan II.

The narrative is organized into three chapters, similar to a book's structure and personal memories are recounted through interviews, archival documents and live footage of demonstrations. Rhalib plays a self-reflexive role in the film with his voice-over and visual presence in shots throughout the film shaping the content. He anchors the narrative clearly within Moroccan national history when he narrates, over a map of the kingdom:

> This is the kingdom of Morocco [...] bordering between Europe and Africa. Since 1631 the country has been governed by the Alawite Dynasty whose members claim to be direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. On March 2, Morocco gained independence and Mohammad V assumed the title of king in August 1957. He is considered by many to be the father of the modern Moroccan nation. On February 26, 1961, he died during routine surgery and Hassan II succeeded him to the throne. For three decades the Moroccans would be subjected to measures of austerity, repression, arbitrary arrests and torture. The reign of Hassan II, known as the “Lead Years,” was witness to tens of thousands of victims [...] killed, maimed, imprisoned, made to disappear or forced into exile.

The initial presentation appears to be objective and in expository mode, as Rhalib narrates, avoiding the first-person pronoun. His tone of voice, however, takes on a terse edge as he says the words, Lead Years, and the map dissolves into archival black and white photos of secret sites of police interrogation and torture. Rhalib embraces the first-person voice when he declares that he will go out in the community “to see and give voice and exposure to a nation who is finally finding its voice, a nation who defies fear.” As he takes on the first-person voice, we also glimpse physical images of him within the frame and diegesis – object and subject become one and silenced voices are afforded time and space.

In this film, the epistolary impulse is one of protest and activism and two very specific examples of epistolary form stand out. In the first, the filmmaker creates a
metaphor linking his fate to that of writer/journalist and former political prisoner, Khalid Jamaï, who reads passages of his novel, 1973, *Présumés coupables* (2003), at various points throughout the film. In the film, Jamaï acts as reporter and embodiment of the Lead Years experiences, and, as such is the teacher and mentor to the Internet and Facebook generation who want immediate social and political change. Jamaï is the wise teacher giving the history lesson and contextualizing for these youth the concept of sustained revolution through the metaphor of the Moroccan turtle rather than the Egyptian or Tunisian rabbit.

During the Lead Years, journalists were arbitrarily arrested, detained and tortured. Heavy censorship of all media was the norm. Jamaï, a journalist for the nationalist (Istiqlal or Independence Party) French language newspaper, *L'Opinion*, was incarcerated for five months in 1973 without a trial for allegedly authorizing a photographer to take a photo of one of the royal family's children while in a Rabat street. As he begins to read, Jamaï is depicted in a slightly-high medium close-up shot facing the camera, as he sits at his desk, head buried in his novel. The image is in black and white but color bleeds in as Jamaï's voice-over begins reading from the novel. The next shot is a close-up of the page being read, as if Rhalib wants to reassure the viewer that although these are Jamaï's words and not his own, this individual experience of history could very well be a collective one. Jamaï's performance is a "ritual of communication" whereby "diegetic characters and filmmakers seek to redress a historical wrong by appealing to spectators' sense of morality and justice" (Naficy, 2001: 114). Naficy terms this structure, "epistolary communitarianism," and although actual letters might not be involved, the films themselves "are often made under the regimes of erasure and desire that are similar to the letter-films, and their diegetic characters address the audience directly, using the film itself as an epistle" (214).

The shot that follows is a medium close-up of Jamaï facing the camera and musing: "Fear was a structural element of Hassan II's regime. But worse than that was the fear of being afraid, and of the unknown. It was a world in which we felt we were always being watched [...] always under heavy surveillance." Jamaï is positioned frame left, and on frame right is a prominently-displayed newspaper clipping penned by Jamaï and titled, "Lettre Ouverte au Roi Mohammed VI" (Open Letter to King Mohammed VI) (Image 5). The letter takes up the issues and demands of the Feb. 20, 2011 Movement and would have been unthinkable under the reign of Hassan II. Jamaï still believes that not much has changed in Morocco and that the king has monopolized and consolidated his executive, legislative and judicial powers as "Commander of the Believers," leaving parliament mostly out of the picture. According to Jamaï, the king continues to enjoy supreme authority over every decision affecting Jamaï's life and that of his children and grandchildren; although it could be argued that Jamaï is ignoring that separation of power should be understood from two different perspectives: Islamic public law and modern constitutional law. In an open letter posted November 29, 2016 on the Arabic site, *Hespress*, Jamaï explains that he continues to write to the king in the hopes that one day concrete reforms will occur (Jamaï, 2016).
<figure><img src="image_36.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_37.png" /><figcaption>Image 5 and 6. *The Turtles' Song, a Moroccan Revolution* (Jawad Rhalib, 2013).</figcaption></figure>

Source: Screenshot.

The second example of epistolary form occurs through the performance of rap songs by the musical fusion group Hoba Hoba Spirit, a band based in Casablanca. A music track of their song, “Super Caïd” (2007) is laid over images of poverty and despair and posters denouncing corruption as the singers rap, “Monsieur le Super Caïd, I’m writing you a letter which I hope you will read after Eïd [...] I am hoping you will grant me a life certificate and may God glorify you” (Image 6). Song transitions to speech acts as ordinary Moroccans take to the podium in the newly-created speaker’s corner for free speech, the Casablanca Agora.

The filmmaker enfolds layers of meaning through irony, parody and metaphor. Naficy writes: “Parody has become a major performative strategy in our age, dubbed
the ‘age of irony’”. He cautions that nothing can be taken for granted and that even heroes can be “deconstructed and deflated” (2001; 278). The risk with irony is that it can be misconstrued and offer the impression that it can take the place of serious political action However, for the viewer who successfully unfolds the layers of meaning of Hoba Hoba Spirit’s audio letter, layered over the visual track of images of Moroccan despair, the result is rewarding. For example, “May God glorify you,” is a phrase normally used to address someone in high power. So, who is the Super Caïd, and is the song a further petition (beyond Jamaï’s open letter) to the king on the part of the filmmaker, Rhalib, imploring Mohammed VI to take better care of his thirty million subjects? Naficy contends: “the very fact of addressing someone in an epistle creates an illusion of presence that transforms the addressee from an absent figure into a presence, which hovers in the text’s interstices” (2001: 103). From these, the film unfolds the question of who is responsible for the future of Morocco. While the filmmaker concludes that everyone is responsible for building a better future, it is useful to recall Jamaï’s open letter to the king which outlines how, within the constitution, every citizen of the kingdom has the right to hold the king and the government to account for the kingdom’s and the people’s wellbeing. Hoba Hoba Spirit end the film rapping the revolutionary poem, “The Will to Live,” written in 1933 by the Tunisian Abou el Kacem Chebbi, and which became the revolutionary slogan of the Arab Spring uprisings.

**5. Conclusion**

I began this essay with the goal of taking Laura Rascaroli’s notion of “epistolarity as argumentation” (2017: 143) to probe how North African documentary filmmakers Habiba Djahnine, Drifa Mezenner, and Jawad Rhalib deploy the letter in their reflexive and performative documentary films as a strategy to come to terms with personal alienation at a specific point in their national histories. In *Letter to my Sister*, Habiba Djahnine crafted a letter-film to *speak* the violence of the Algerian Civil War period and overcome it to find a way forward in post–civil war Algeria. The letter-film also provided a voice for her dead sister to respond to the violence enacted on her and to continue her work by speaking (posthumously through the letter-film) to all Algerian feminists. In *I Lived in the Absence Twice*, Drifa Mezenner creates an epistolary relationship with her absent brother in order to come to terms with his absence from the family and exile from Algeria. This double absence creates yet another absence within her very being that she attempts to reconcile within and alongside a society torn apart by civil war, terrorism and exodus. In *The Turtles’ Song: a Moroccan Revolution*, Jawad Rhalib depicts how, in post-Arab Spring Morocco, newspaper letters and rap song letters are just some of the ways in which Moroccans are gaining voice and overcoming the fear of speaking out.

Each film is a first-person film in which the letter functions as an integral plot device to allow the filmmaker to rediscover their own voice and place within their own national histories of Algeria and Morocco. What began with personal silence and despair evolved into collective voice and activist expression within the essay film canon.
## 6. References

Bhabha, Homi. (1994). "Frontlines/Borderposts." In Angelika Bammer (ed.), *Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question*. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 269-72.

Farocki, Harun and Hüser, Rembert. (2004). "Nine Minutes in the Yard. A Conversation with Harun Farocki." In Thomas Elsaesser, (ed.), *Harun Farocki. Working on the Sightlines*. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 279-314

Gabara, Rachel (2019). "From Ethnography to Essay: Realism, Reflexivity, and African Documentary Film." In Kenneth W. Harrow and Carmela Garritano (eds.), *A Companion to African Cinema*. First Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 358-78.

Jamaï, Khalid (2016). "POLÉMIQUE – Khalid Jamaï explique dans une lettre ouverte pourquoi il a souvent interpellé le roi du Maroc..." *Article19.ma*, 1st December Retrieved from http://article19.ma/accueil/archives/55345

Lamri, Rachida (2014). "Arts & Culture | Interview | Drifa Mezenner: 'I lived in the absence twice'". *Ceasefire*. 1st April. Retrieved from https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/interview-drifa-mezenner-i-lived-absence-twice/

Maazouzi, Djemaa, Djemaa (2013). "'Néant et lumière', l'Algérie possible de Habiba Djahnine". *Nouvelle Revue Synergies Canada*, 6, 1-14. Retrieved from https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/nrsc/article/view/2870/3143

Marks, Laura U. (2015). *Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image*. Boston: The MIT Press.

Naficy, Hamid. (1999). "Between rocks and hard places: the interstitial mode of production in exilic cinema". In Hamid Naficy (ed.), *Home, Exile, Homeland: Film, Media, and the Politics of Place*. New York and London: Routledge, 125-147.

Naficy, Hamid (2001). *An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking*. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Nichols, Bill. (2016). "Foreword", In Daniel Marcus and Selmin Kara (eds.), *Contemporary Documentary*. Oxon and New York: Routledge, xi-xvii.

Rascaroli, Laura. (2017). *How the Essay Film Thinks*. New York: Oxford University Press.

Renov, Michael. (2004). *The Subject of Documentary*. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Ruby, Jay. (1988). "The image mirrored: reflexivity and the documentary film." In Alan Rosenthal (ed.), *New Challenges for Documentary*. Berkeley: University of California Press, 64-77.

Ulfsdotter, Boel. (2018). "The Memories of *Belleville Baby*: Autofiction as Evidence". In Boel Ulfsdotter and Anna Backman Rogers (eds.), *Female Authorship and the Documentary Image: Theory, Practice and Aesthetics*. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 144-58.

Van de Peer, Stefanie (2018). *Negotiating Dissidence: The Pioneering Women of Arab Documentary*. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
<figure><img src="image_38.png" /></figure>
Epistolary Form and the Displaced Global Subject in Recent Films by
James Benning and Jem Cohen

Rebecca Anne Sheehan<fnref n="1" />

Submitted: 07th March 2019 / Approved: 10th June 2019

**Abstract.** This essay focuses on the epistolary enunciation of recent works by two contemporary American filmmakers, Jem Cohen and James Benning, arguing for the stakes of viewing their films through an epistolary lens rather than the lenses of literary forms like the essay and the diary more commonly deployed to describe films that hug the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. Looking specifically at Cohen's *Chain* (2004) and *Counting* (2015) and Benning's *Stemple Pass* (2013) and his installation *Two Cabins* (2011), I show how it is the epistolary enunciation of Benning's and Cohen's recent work that allows them to properly explore and depict the displacement of late capitalism's subject in an increasingly globalized world. I go on to show that through epistolary enunciation both filmmakers also tap into American Transcendentalist and Pragmatist notions of individualism and selfhood that resist the homogenizing nature of late capitalism.

**Keywords:** epistolary cinema; essay Film; James Benning; Jem Cohen; globalization; late capitalism

[es] La forma epistolar y el sujeto global desplazado en films recientes de James Benning y Jem Cohen

**Resumen.** Este artículo se centra en la enunciación epistolar de algunas obras recientes de dos cineastas estadounidenses contemporáneos, Jem Cohen y James Benning, argumentando el interés de visionar sus films a través de una lente epistolar en lugar de formas literarias como el ensayo y el diario, más comúnmente utilizadas para describir películas que abordan los límites entre ficción y no ficción. Analizando específicamente *Chain* (2004) y *Counting* (2015) de Cohen y *Stemple Pass* (2013) y la instalación *Two Cabins* (2011) de Benning, mostramos cómo la enunciación epistolar de la obra reciente de ambos cineastas les permite explorar y representar el desplazamiento del sujeto del capitalismo tardío en un mundo cada vez más globalizado. Analizamos igualmente cómo a través de la enunciación epistolar ambos cineastas se sirven de las nociones de individualismo e individualidad del trascendentalismo y el pragmatismo americanos, las cuales oponen resistencia a la naturaleza homogeneizante del capitalismo tardío

**Palabras clave:** cine epistolar; film-ensayo; James Benning; Jem Cohen; globalización; capitalismo
tardío

[fr] La forme épistolaire et le sujet global déplacé dans des films récents de James Banning et Jem Cohen

<footnote n="1">¹ California State University (USA)
E-mail: rsheehan@fullerton.edu</footnote>
shima mon amour (1959), which Corrigan rightly cites as an “essayistic narrative” (2011: 87), but which is also literally between an *I* and a *you*, exemplifying what Janet G. Altman (1982: 117) has argued as one of three foundational characteristics of epistolary form.<fnref n="2" /> Both Cohen’s and Benning’s works, through their formal aesthetics, especially their preference for the long-take and the ubiquity of voiceovers that resonate with the form of the letter and the diary, also recall Chantal Akerman’s epistolary films *News from Home* (1977), *Je, tu, il, elle* (1974) and *Les Rendez-vous d’Anna* (1978). As works by Akerman, Resnais, and Marker, which contain crucial gestures of epistolary enunciation have become centerpieces of theories of the essay film, I hope that introducing an epistolary lens to the work of Benning and Cohen as their inheritors will clarify the stakes of crystalizing the relationship between *epistolary* form and the broader concerns of earlier films like *Sans Soleil*, *Hiroshima mon amour*, and *News from Home*. Epistolary aspects of the essay film somewhat uniquely draw out themes of loneliness and disconnection on the one hand, and human connection found within cinema and its images on the other, that unite the films of Benning and Cohen with these earlier exemplars of the essay-epistle hybrid.

My second reason for turning to Benning and Cohen in the context of epistolary enunciation in contemporary American cinema is that their work does not contain explicit letters or epistles per se and thus their films open themselves to a more expansive and generative notion of *epistolary enunciation*. I will argue that their recent works do this by trafficking in and drawing upon three major aspects of epistolary form that often overlap with descriptions of the essay film. First, I will show Benning’s and Cohen’s films rely upon a dialectics and dialogue embodied in the epistolary binary between sender and receiver. Second, I will read their films in the context of diaspora and displacement as letters are often at the heart of what Corrigan has called “essayistic travel” (2011: 104-130), and as diaspora and the displacement of the subject undergird the relationships depicted in Benning’s and Cohen’s works. Finally, I will examine temporal dislocations or what Laura Rascaroli has referred to in the context of the essay film as “issues of time” (2017: 97) in these films, *issues* which are inherent to what Janet G. Altman has called the “present tense” (1982: 117) of epistolary form by which past and future are held in a constantly changing relationship to one another. Cohen and Benning engage these *issues of time* through the real-time duration of the long-take in coordination with the slippery temporality of the experiences related through voiceover narration in their films and, in the case of Cohen’s *Counting* (2015), through title cards that create a non-linear assembly of various durations of historical time (with titles that introduce an entire year, a span of two years, at one point a Brooklyn *afternoon*).

My third reason for turning to Benning and Cohen is that they are exemplary of how epistolary enunciation in cinema applies to an inherently *American* intellectual tradition defined by the outsider and the possibilities for alterity rife in the contingencies of the everyday. Both displacement and the changes in subjectivity at issue with letter writing’s temporality (i.e. a current *I* writing to a future *you*, both of whom will have changed between the time a letter was started and when it was finished and between the time it was sent and received) underscore the inevitability of sub-

<footnote n="2">² Altman cites as one of three primary characteristics of epistolary discourse, the “Particularity of the I-You, the I of epistolary discourse always having as an implicit or explicit partner a specific you who stands in unique relation to the I” (1982: 117).</footnote>
jective change as a potential for difference and for action that takes place outside of conformist expectations. These changes in subjectivity create the oppositions to conformity and tradition which are at the heart of American Transcendentalist thinking; the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and the American Pragmatist philosophy based upon what Richard Rorty has described as the “Romantic idea that truth is made rather than found” (1989: 7). The frequent concerns of letter-writing with the quotidian or the everyday and the contingent meanings that can arise therein creates a resonance between the co-extension of form and content in epistolary films and their co-extension in Emerson’s and Thoreau’s works where the aphoristic sentence in the case of the former and the diary in the case of the latter function to articulate evolving meaning, truths that are perpetually made and re-made within the very means of expression rather than as a means to a final end or message. Similarly to, for instance, the four extreme static long-takes (approximately 30 minutes each) of his turn-key property in the Sierra Nevada mountains that comprise Benning’s *Stemple Pass* (2013), or Cohen’s static long-takes of anonymous urban streets and buildings in *Counting*, Emerson’s essays take up “materials strewn along the ground” (2000: 55), rather than searching for edification on the shelves of a library and Thoreau’s *Walden* (1854) takes up the minutiae of his life in the woods, for instance the “boards,” “refuse shingles for roof and sides,” and “two second-hand windows with glass” (1985: 38), and what he paid for each in the construction of his cabin on Walden Pond. Through their embrace of contingency in their preference for the long-take, Benning’s and Cohen’s works invariably assert Richard Rorty’s Pragmatist notion of the importance of “contingency to selfhood”<fnref n="3" /> (1989: 23-43) as the long-take’s generation of contingency resonates with how films like *Stemple Pass, Chain* (2004), and *Counting* imagine modes of individuality that can resist the homogenizing and hegemonizing forces of late capitalism.

## 2. The epistolarity of certain essay films

in this layman's double for prayer that we call memory – Chris Marker
(Epitaph from *Counting*).

In his director's statement on *Counting*, Jem Cohen writes that it was *Skywriting*, the final chapter of *Counting* which he made in "reaction to the death of Chris Marker", that had initiated the film. Appropriately for the epistolary nature of both *Sans Soleil* whose global images networked through a voiceover narrating letters that contain the philosophical musings about memory, time, and history, of a fictional character named Sandor Krasna, and *Counting* whose images and editing are everywhere evocative of Marker's global film<fnref n="4" />, *Counting* concludes with an epitaph drawn from "one of [Marker's] emails" to Cohen (2015). Characteristic of Sandor Krasna's mussings

<footnote n="3">³ Identifying a “tension between an effort to achieve self-creation by the recognition of contingency and an effort to achieve universality by the transcendence of contingency,” Richard Rorty aligns his philosophy with “those who have tried to follow through on the Romantic poets by breaking with Plato and seeing freedom as the recognition of contingency” (Rorty, 1989: 25-26).</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ See for example this review in the German film journal, *Kino-Zeit*, https://www.kino-zeit.de/film-kritiken-trailer/counting, where Lucas Barwenczik notes that *Sans Soleil* “keeps ringing in *Counting*.”</footnote>
in *Sans Soleil*, at one point Kasna tells the unnamed woman narrating his letters and, through her, the audience that “I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining [...] we write our memories like we write history.” Indeed, *Sans Soleil* figures presence by way of absence, memory as the lining of forgetting, engaging an ethics which resists both the totalizing tendencies of narrative film’s closures and documentary film’s claims of objectivity. It does this through aspects that Corrigan suggests as inherent to the form of the essay film as it replaces epistemological claims aimed at the location and presentation of “strict knowledge” with an *ars combinatoria* that instead practices an imaginative configuration, an epistemological *arrangement*, acting as the product of a “self suspended in the experience of thinking through the core of life” (2011: 22). Clearly, the liminal or *touching* nature of what Krasna describes is embedded in the extent to which epistolary form embodies a desire to remember, to document, to “write history”, and the inevitability of those desires everywhere touching upon “forgetting” and loss, as epistolarity involves transmissions over time and between inevitably changing subjective positions. As Krasna’s letters take us across continents in what Corrigan has called “rapid and unexpected global movements” (2011: 176), so too does Cohen’s film: its editing makes the world seem small by rapidly transitioning through distant spaces – New York City, Moscow, Istanbul, London, New Jersey – and times – 2012-2014, afternoon, October 2012. These shots constitute *arrangements* yes, but, importantly, they are also *transmissions*; for instance, we see images of signs with Cyrillic letters in what we learn to be “Afternoon Light in Brooklyn”, which connect in our minds with images containing Cyrillic advertisements in what we learn to be Moscow. Like *Sans Soleil, Counting* is not simply an *arrangement* of images and places, but a film offering epistolary transmissions, connections and even disconnections between them. In *Counting*, Cohen references how *Sans Soleil’s* editing generates a wonder and surprise that *different* places and people could be connected in the ways it proposes, utilizing the same mechanisms of transmission to reveal the unsurprising nature of the homogeneity of urban spaces in a world flattened by the tentacles of global capitalism.

Cohen’s *Counting* is also indebted (whether consciously or not) to Chantal Akerman’s *News from Home*, a film similarly comprised of static long-takes of an urban environment, as Akerman’s camera looks onto her new home of New York City through the camera as a window, from the stand-point of an outsider. Similar to Chris Marker’s *Sans Soleil* whose narrator underscores remembering as the “lining” of forgetting, Chantal Akerman’s *News from Home* layers the words of Akerman’s mother’s letters, written to her from Akerman’s home in her past over images of the place of her new home, New York City, in her present, thus engaging in a similar act of remembering as a *lining of forgetting*, the fragments of a world left behind by Akerman evident in the un-pictured spaces that subtend her mother’s words. *Sans Soleil* and *News from Home* are films which function in apparent agreement with Trinh Minh-ha’s important argument for why documentary form should work to relinquish claims to totalizing meaning and knowledge, the “idealist mystification that ‘truth’ can be captured by the camera or that the conditions of a film’s production can of itself reflect the conditions of its production” (1993: 105, 107). Importantly, it is the aspects of their *epistolary* form which allows these films to resist what Minh-ha describes as “totalized meaning” (1993: 107). Their epistolary fragmentation (what Corrigan would call their essayistic *ars combinatoria*) evokes the transmission of
letters between a sender and receiver that transgresses the realms of the self and the same (the territory of the essay which revolves around the “provisional self” (Corrigan, 2011: 17) in order to glimpse and accept another without reducing it to terms of its own. Fundamental to Cohen’s and Benning’s works is an *epistolary* form found within the films of their predecessors (Marker and Akerman) that allows their films to escape Minh-ha’s *totalized meaning* by making space for the alterity of another through the three main systems of epistolary de-linkages: within the contingencies of the everyday and the long-take, the aporias or *linings* (*Sans Soleil*) found in gaps between sound and image and the retrieval of otherwise *missable* details of the world (Cavell, 1996: 238) and through the *unexpected* nature of *global movements* that connect images found in their films.

As an example of this alterity of meaning, Benning’s and Cohen’s employment of the static long-take embraces contingency as a matter of form as the duration of the long-take subjects a shot to the unplanned and as the static long-take mimics the photographic still. As a point that introduces contingency to the continuum of the film strip – as Mary Ann Doane (2002: 31) has argued –, the photograph is emblematic of the alterity the epistolary permits the other. That is, the contingent nature of the photographic in each of these films is representative of the resistance of the other to the cognitive appropriation of the self, what Emmanuel Levinas imagined as an ethics of encounter that resists the ontological with a mode of critique that calls into question the “exercise of the same” (Levinas, 1961: 43, 124). As the photographic selects a moment and image from a continuum of time, an event from history, an object from a room, a street corner from a cityscape, it exercises a similar relationship to the everyday as that of the epistle, a relationship resonant with the lists of the 11th century Japanese princess mentioned in Marker’s *Sans Soleil*, lists capable of “quickening the heart.” This contingency of choice regarding the everyday is as apparent to *Sans Soleil’s random* images as it is to what Cohen chooses to train his camera on in the myriad cities that comprise *Counting* or the angle of view Benning has chosen for all four static extreme long-takes of his turn-key property and cabin fashioned after Henry David Thoreau’s and the Unabomber’s that comprise *Stemple Pass*. The contingent rather than causal nature of the photograph, the list, and the contents and future of the epistolary letter (in *News from Home*, Akerman’s mother constantly doubts whether her letters or the forty dollars she often encloses with them has been or will be received), make the photographic image in its resistance to film’s duration suggestive for grasping the ethics of open-endedness and open-mindedness of these films. Many of the images of *Counting* appear static only to have movement within the frame remind us that we are watching a film and the stillness of the four shots in *Stemple Pass* are interrupted only by the changing sky, the wind blowing through the leaves and the sounds of nature we hear through and in-between the voice narrating Kaszynski’s journals. In these ways, Benning and Cohen intentionally exploit the static image and the long-take to cultivate the unexpected. Benning’s and Cohen’s fondness for the long-take, following Akerman’s films, allows the contingency implied by the photograph’s excision from time to stand within a shot that contains no climax, no ostensible *point*, and often bears no causal or explanatory relationship to the shot that precedes or succeeds it (Image 1). The real time of a space selected from vast, sometimes crowded and sometimes desolate urban spaces in *Counting* and *News from Home*, suggests the radical fact that any-moment-whatsoever within the shot may be leant significance by the viewer or the voiceover just as Akerman’s and
Cohen’s cameras have plucked from the city and leant significance to what seems to be any view whatsoever (Image 2).

<figure><img src="image_39.png" /><figcaption>Image 1. The second of four static extreme long-takes. *Stemple Pass* (James Benning, 2013). Source: Screenshot.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_40.png" /><figcaption>Image 2. *Counting* (Jem Cohen, 2015). Source: Screenshot.</figcaption></figure>

The letter’s interest in the everyday can help locate the other within the same as, for example, Akerman’s mother is prompted by missing her daughter to write about things which seem quite ordinary and which become significant in light of her daughter’s absence. Instead of degrading the other’s strangeness into terms comprehensible by the same, this act of lending significance to the insignificant, noticing
the *missable* gives representation to the other through a process of defamiliarization, resisting the other's incorporation into a known or predictable narrative. Finding within the ordinary the extraordinary, the contingent moment or object within a linear or determined history, helps give representation to what Levinas called "existents" (1961: 23, 42-45), *someones* over the impersonal nature of Being, the priority of Heideggerian ontology. In the world of the letter, objects are inflected with otherness as they are articulated by the self for another, the letter is thus able to recognize the strange in the known, possibilities for difference within the context of the same. Stanley Cavell found that film itself provided a means of locating the unknown or the unseen within the visible, as film gives representation to Cavell's *missable*, drawing our attention to everyday objects and details that may be visible but which we might never *see*. Cavell writes of this experience watching *Mr. Deeds Goes to Town* (1936), that certain viewing angles that seemed *missable* struck him in ways that they wouldn't outside of a film, that they persisted in his memory and in this sense gained renewed significance (1996: 238). The process by which the known, the everyday, may be reviewed, is inherent to the epistolary's special relationship to the events of the everyday as they take on a renewed significance in the face of an other whose absence prompts the revisiting of details that would otherwise go unnoticed or unthought about. This activity of revisiting the everyday resonates with the *missable* nature of the images Cohen's camera retrieves from busy urban environments for the sake of his spectator (or for the sake of his future self). What Cavell notes about the inherent ontology of film, to make present the *missable*, is similar to what takes place within the epistolary in which the world is made present to an other whose absence prompts a refiguring of the ordinary.

### 3. Dialectics

The dialectic is one of three components of the essay film frequently taxonomized and discussed by major theorists that is also fundamental to the binary structure of the epistle. Dialectics in the form of the diptych and the dialogue are essential to Jem Cohen's *Chain* and James Benning's *Stemple Pass* and *Two Cabins* (2011). *Stemple Pass* and Benning's related installation project, *Two Cabins*, put into conversation the cabins and diaries of Henry David Thoreau (*Walden*, 1854) and of Ted Kazscynski, in what might be described as an epistolary exchange interested in issues spanning American identity, morality, celebrity, and ecology and environmentalism. Jem Cohen's *Chain* assumes a similarly diptych structure in order to get at issues of 21st century American identity in the age of the transnational corporation, featuring hotel chains and strip malls of small town and urban America, as it follows the experiences of two female characters who navigate their lives through them. I would like to latch on here to a critical component of Tim Corrigan's theory of the essay film's "intersecting activity of personal expression, public experience, and the process of thinking" (2011: 14). *Chain* engages in a dialectics of the personal and public Corrigan suggests here as its characters navigate personal spaces and moments through not only public but transnational spaces. At various points, the homeless female subject in *Chain* who wanders through malls and stores by day and escapes to an abandoned house in which she squats by night, engages in an epistolary address to and through the camera: "It's good for you that I live here, I don't have
to bum rides from you anymore.” (Image 3). We never learn who the *you* is in this address. About the camera she found (or perhaps stole), she says: “I started playing around with it, filming myself like it was for my half-sister, Tina, back home.” and later: “I never did like writing, dear diary and shit, so I have this.” Thus, the subject’s addresses are to the camera, to us, and she suggests they are synonymous with writing. This epistolary exchange (as she asserts an *I* and a *you*), and the exchange implicit between this subject and the world of the Japanese businesswoman whose adventures travelling through hotel rooms and up-scale malls comprise a second story intercut with this one, echo the transactional exchanges that everywhere surround these female subjects but in which they do not participate.

The homeless woman narrates her days hanging around the mall without buying anything: “I found a broken cell phone and I pretend to talk on it [...] since then mall security pretty much leaves me alone.” A suspicious subject for not engaging in commercial exchange, she makes herself invisible once again by engaging in an image of mediated social exchange by appearing to talk on the phone. Similarly, the Japanese business woman is meant to have a productive meeting with “the company” who has flown her to the various empty rooms full of cubicles and the hotel rooms in which she stays, but this meeting never transpires (Image 4). Both characters inhabit spaces that are supposed to be only moved *through*, while they each hold out on engaging in the exchange and commerce that defines these spaces and life in a world of contemporary global capitalism.

The diptych structure of Cohen’s film resonates with the very mechanisms of capitalist exchange it criticizes as the film’s editing engages in a constant alternation between the two stories. However, while the film’s formal epistolary dialectics mimic capitalist exchanges, these predictable back-and-forths are ironically contested by the individuality asserted through other epistolary exchanges; between the homeless American subject and her camera, and between the stream-of-consciousness-like voiceovers of the Japanese business woman and the dreary images of the spaces she visits. Through their epistle-like narratives, individuality asserts itself in the face of the bleakly homogenous character of the transnational *chains* referred to in Cohen’s title which have reduced the *unexpected* nature of the global movements evoked by Marker’s *Sans Soleil* to the expected, the same. Each scene of the Japanese businesswoman’s life takes us to a hypothetically different city that looks no different from the last and the mall inhabited by the homeless woman of the other story could be in almost any first world city or suburb, the generic storefronts and architecture comprising it lacking any specific identifier of place. As with the homeless woman’s narrative, malls feature heavily in the Japanese business woman’s world and are transglobally linked through their homogeneity. At one point she observes, “I make reports for the company about [...] the theme park business. I have been to California, to Minneapolis and to Edmonton, Canada, where the theme park is combined with the largest shopping mall on the planet.” Cohen’s focus on malls from all over the world that all look the same conveys the flattening effect of globalization.
<figure><img src="image_41.png" /><figcaption>Images 3 and 4. *Chain* (Jem Cohen, 2004). Source: Screenshot.</figcaption></figure>

The dialectic nature of what I have claimed is the epistolary basis of Cohen’s *Chain* offers its subjects a way out of losing their identities and individualities to the dictates of their global capitalist surroundings, activating the “remaking of the self” Corrigan sees as inherent to the essay film (2011: 17). Cohen also uses the binary nature of the epistolary’s dialectics as a metaphor for the compulsions of capitalist exchanges, for commerce itself, and thus the exchange-based nature of epistolary form allows *Chain* to break with the inevitability insinuated by its title (prognosticating a chain reaction, one thing following from another, things inextricably tied to one an-
other), as it is better able through its dialectic form to illuminate the exchange-based nature of capitalism as a source for the loss of individualism. Dialectics also play an important role in Thoreau's *Walden* as that text performs a dialogue between Thoreau and himself and Thoreau and the world (including his readers) which, similarly to how Corrigan has described the processes of the essay film's thinking, betrays "a self suspended in the experience of thinking through the core of life" (2011: 22). The epistolary diptych Benning stages between Thoreau's cabin and diaries and the Unabomber's (in *Two Cabins*) is rooted in the dialectic thinking advanced by Thoreau's writing, where he advocates for the same individualism and resistance to structures of economic and social conformity that Cohen uses epistolary dialectics to resist in *Chain*. The epistolary dialectics of these films illuminate their concerns with aspects of alienation, dislocation, non-identity, and homelessness inherent to modern subjectivity while also tying them to an American intellectual tradition concerned with the impact on the individual of 19th century industrialism, a previous moment in the history of global capitalism.

Epistolary form calls attention to the roles of sender, message, and receiver, delineating the binary composition of dialectics (senders, receivers) but also in-betweens (the message(s) sent and received). These *in-betweens* are what Corrigan (2011: 22-23) and Rascaroli (2017: 47) use various theorists to develop as third terms essential to what they argue to be the essay's provisional, probing, undefined, and emergent qualities. These *in-betweens* as they develop discursively within the epistolary form of the films I have examined provide an alternative, a stop-gap, to the very nature of exchange. As Cohen shows us, these *in-betweens* when viewed as part and parcel to the exchanges that structure epistolarity and commerce, provide important spaces of resistance to the homogenizing threats to selfhood based in the compulsions of economy and society. In *Stemple Pass*, as a voice narrates Ted Kaczynski's journalistic musings about his own interruptions to the industrial activities encroaching on his home in the woods (as when he puts sugar in the gas tank of a truck carrying a mining tool), the epistolary enunciation of the voiceover reading from Kaczynski's diaries serves as a metaphor for the exchanges that drive commerce while locating therein the ironic place where selfhood can arise from a moment of contingency, throwing a wrench in the gears of capitalism's chains.

Rascaroli deploys Deleuze's notion of the interstice to articulate how the essay film broaches the unthought, and what lay in-between the world (2017: 48). Both Rascaroli and Corrigan lean on Adorno's notions of discontinuity and juxtaposition (Rascaroli, 2017: 7) in the essay, a form which Corrigan describes as "conflict brought to a standstill," appealing as well to the figure of the "force field" (2011: 23) used by Adorno to describe the essayistic and the similar figure of Benjamin's constellation (Corrigan, 2011: 22; Benjamin, 1977: 34). All of these features and figures (discontinuity, juxtaposition, conflict, force field, constellation, combination) imply binaries that give way, over the course of the essay film to new relationships between them, thus the binary undergirds the dominant theoretical approaches to the essay film and the resultant third term to the binary (the interstice or the in between) asserts itself as an emergent, evolving and never defined set of relations, encounters held open in the case of Benning's and Cohen's subjects for self-creation and assertion achieved, as Rorty puts it, "by the recognition of contingency" (1989: 25).

There is an important basis for the perpetual (re)-discovery inherent to the dialectics of the epistolary's third terms, and for the location within dialectics of both
a threat to individualism and its redemption in American Transcendentalist thought.
About Thoreau's *Walden*, Cavell writes:

> We know the specific day, the specific year on which all the ancestors of New England took up their abode in the woods. That moment of origin is the national event re-enacted in the events of *Walden*, in order this time to do it right, or to prove that it is impossible [...] any American is apt to respond to that event in one way or another to the knowledge that America exists only in its discovery and its discovery was always an accident. (1992: 8)

The dialectics here between a discovery and founding in the past of a country which defines itself through the very notions of freedom that must resist the confines of its founding, suggest a compulsion to undermine the definitive nature of American discovery with the liberating reassurance that its discovery was “always an accident” (Cavell, 1992: 8). Thus, for Cavell, *Walden* explores the paradox of America’s desire to at once preserve the contingencies of its own discovery as a metaphor for the freedom of the individual and to maintain its own history, a defined identity. It is no wonder that the mood Cavell describes as predominant in *Walden* is “at once of absolute hope and yet of absolute defeat, his own and his nation’s” (1992: 9). This binary between hope and defeat, the individual and the nation is one that I’ve argued is evident in the binary that fundamentally subtends *Chain’s* dialectics. It exists between the first figure of dialectics, the enchaining jail of commerce that defines society and the individual in the age of late capitalism on the one hand – Thoreau’s “absolute defeat” – and the second figure of dialectics, *Chain’s* epistolary structures, which permit the emergence of individuality – Thoreau’s “absolute hope” – (Cavell, 1992: 9). Between these two dialectics *Chain* imagines subjects who resist the exchanges of commerce to engage instead in exchanges that produce their own unique thoughts, defining their selfhood against forces that threaten to erase it.

4. Diaspora/Displacement

The epistolary has always been a preeminent quality of essay films that involve travel. The prominence of explicit letters (rather than epistolary enunciation) in these films is unsurprising given that the epistolary explicitly invokes overcoming geographic distance and thus resonates with experiences of diaspora, displacement, and travel. As Hamid Naficy has argued: “Exile and epistolarity are constitutively linked because both are driven by distance, separation, absence, and loss and by the desire to bridge multiple gaps” (2001: 101). Though Naficy is particularly interested in mapping the relationship between epistolarity and national exile, I would like to apply his notion of exile more broadly to the displacements experienced by the early 21st century subject described in Benning’s and Cohen’s films. Epistolary enunciation is essential for understanding the myriad forms of displacement central to the existential questions of early 21st century subjectivity that course through Benning’s and Cohen’s films where subjects are adrift and unmoored, homeless on account of being exiled from heterogenous, private spaces, and unique identities to the homogenous, public and generic identities that characterize the world of late capitalist globalization as with the spaces pictured in *Chain* and *Counting*. Homelessness or
acts of homing on account of being exiled from a connection to the natural world (as in *Chain*, but also in *Stemple Pass* and Benning's California Trilogy), or on account of being exiled from either a sense of community or a sense of individuality, are qualities that emerge through epistolary forms in these films. The epistolary address of the homeless subject who squats in an abandoned house in *Chain* to the camera underscores her solitude as she invokes remembrances of those she left behind when she ran away from home (her mother, her step-sister, the *you* who used to give her rides). Alternately, Benning's transformation of Ted Kascynski's journals into voice-over addresses to the audience document his preferred isolation from society and the extent to which it is the encroachments of modern industries and technologies (from mining to motorcycles) that displace him from his home. Early in *Stemple Pass*, the *I* of these addresses bemoans that: "It seems like there's no place in the world where one can be alone", underscoring the threats he perceives not only to his environment but to his desire to be alone, on his own.

Cohen's montage often functions as a synonym for the networked reality of a digital world and as a network that alienates the unique identity of any given cultural place or people, making those places and identities the same through edits that join for instance Istanbul to New York City and Moscow in *Counting*. These edits also bring those distant places together into a visual conversation. In this sense, Cohen's edits perform the dialectic role of the cut as suture (bringing together while holding apart), highlighting the irrational interval Deleuze theorized key to describing what Rascaroli calls "essayistic thinking at the junction of images," the "unthought" that emerges between two shots (2017: 47). Like Cohen's films, James Benning's recent films reflect the displacements of subjectivity, identity, and space, inherent to the late capitalism of the 21st century *and* the possibilities of developing new human connections in a more networked world. Benning's *Stemple Pass*, for example, both bemoans the displacements of modern industry upon nature *and* joins two temporally and geographically distant historical subjects, Henry David Thoreau and the Unabomber, exploring what unites these figures that American history has relegated to opposing moral sides, and what similarly divides both of them from a capitalist society they cannot abide. Suggesting a connection between the Unabomber's writings and Thoreau's philosophy allows the Unabomber's words some ironic form of redemption, a connection to a morally acceptable historical figure that saves their important commentaries on environmentalism, criticisms of the encroachments of society upon the individual and industry upon nature, from becoming eclipsed by the infamy of their author. Early on in *Stemple Pass*, the Unabomber's words express his wish to "confess some of the misdeeds I've committed in the last two years," and go on to describe increasingly malicious and deadly pranks he commits in order to resist being displaced from his cabin in the woods. He speaks of actions comprising as much an environmentalist as a misanthropic mission: "there's a small functioning mine a few miles from my cabin [...] they had a large diesel engine attached to a truck, apparently for drilling large holes in rocks [...] I put a small quantity of sugar in the engine and in the gas tank of the truck. Sugar in the gas tank is supposed to severely damage the cylinders and act as an abrasive". The act of *confessing* these deeds in a journal, presumes an epistolary other, perhaps a future reader, perhaps his own conscience. Here, Kaczynski is clearly illuminating the environmental nuisance of the destruction wrought by mining and showing off the cunning nature of the prank he uses to resist it, an assertion of an individualist spirit. In another anecdote
he “confesses,” “after the roaring-by motorcycles spoiled a hike for me, I put a wire across a trail where cycle tracks were visible at about neck-height,” thus documenting his misgivings about both his environment and his solitude being interrupted and what we take to be the nascence of his murderous proclivities. By focusing all of our visual attention on four shots of a cabin in a pristine natural environment and using Thoreau as a diptych foil (much of the Unabomber’s description of his cabin and his daily work seem lifted from *Walden*), Benning’s film is able to break down the duality between black and white, good and evil, using a dialectics that gets at something more subtle and complex: that a morally reprehensible person can have worthy thoughts to which we *should* tune our attention rather than dismiss out of hand. Conversely for the case of Thoreau, the comparison with the Unabomber helps illuminate the real misanthropic elements of Thoreau’s work, elements we tend to look past in our commitment to him as a virtuous figure definitive of America. The truth Benning insinuates is the irony that within the Unabomber’s and Thoreau’s acts of misanthropy are the aversive self and individualism upon which America has historically prided itself.

Environmental displacement and diaspora are not only central to *Stemple Pass* but also to Benning’s earlier California Trilogy – *El Valley Centro* (2000), *Los*, and *Sogobi* (2001) – which also comments on the environmental consequences of late capitalism as industry displaces nature and gobbles up its finite resources. Benning’s static long-takes invariably frame sites where California’s natural rugged beauty runs up against wind farms and the grotesque images of factory farming in *El Valley Centro*, while *Los* presents various images of Los Angeles that remind the audience of its impossible foundation in a desert as images of trickling waterways remind us of an impending water crisis (Image 5). In Cohen’s *Chain*, the architectures of strip malls and the planning of hotels everywhere beat back at a natural environment of green grass and fields, something captured by Cohen’s cinematography as his camera so often frames a strip mall from the vantage point of a field whose green grass lay in the foreground, reminding us of what cement and concrete suburban jungles have replaced (Image 6).

Both *Chain* and *Stemple Pass* thus juxtapose the encroachments of modern industry on the environment with societal encroachments on the idiosyncrasies of individuals. These are ways of life held out for as much by Cohen’s homeless subject who refuses to participate in the commerce of commercial spaces as much as she *pretends* to talk to someone on the phone, and the Japanese businesswoman who is less lonely than *alone*, as it is by the Unabomber in Benning’s film who curses the “cocksucker who moved in next door” and notes that: “it wouldn’t be so bad if I found the fellow’s personality congenial but, in fact, I dislike the jerk.” The intent aloneness (rather than loneliness) of Kaczynski’s letters and Benning’s comparison of them to Henry David Thoreau’s *Walden* suggest, along with *Chain*, that alienation may be the pharmakon of late capitalism; both its inevitable poison, and perhaps also an antidote that locates through the subject’s isolation a means of non-conformity capable of resisting the hegemonizing tendencies of transnational/global industry and the ways of life it dictates.
<figure><img src="image_42.png" /><figcaption>Image 5. *Los* (James Benning, 2001). Source: Screenshot.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_43.png" /><figcaption>Image 6. *Chain* (Jem Cohen, 2004). Source: Screenshot.</figcaption></figure>

**5. Issues of time**

Rascaroli explains with regard to structurally diptych films: “the time of the making of the films, the time of the gap between them, and the time of their viewing – are key to the experience and the meaning of the diptych” (2017: 97) are essential to the diptych nature of Cohen’s *Chain* and Benning’s *Two Cabins* and *Stemple Pass*. The
temporal displacements Rascaroli suggests resonate with how Cohen and Benning are able to articulate concerns with the alienation and displacements of the early 21st century subject described above; not only are the subjects of *Chain* and *Stemple Pass* experiencing physical displacement, but their status of displacement and alienation from their selves is reinforced through their subjective changes over the duration of the film and the moments of their experiences related to the audience. For example, Kascynski's journal entries collectively map gradual displacements in his character as his pranks that threaten to annoy their targets eventually become bombs that threaten to kill them. Similarly, in *Chain*, we witness through the homeless woman's conversations with the camera a transformation of her place in the world as she eventually gets two jobs and towards the end of the film tells the camera and us through a voiceover: "But everything's changed so much I don't even have time anymore to do stuff like that, walking around, fooling with the camera." The epigraph by Franz Kafka with which Janet G. Altman begins her book on epistolary form suggests some of the implications of issues with time: "The great feasibility of letter writing must have produced – from a purely theoretical point of view – a terrible dislocation of souls in the world. It is truly a communication with spectres, not only the spectre of the addressee, but also with one's own phantom, which evolves underneath one's own hand in the very letter one is writing" (1982: 2). Kafka's description unites the temporal displacements of letter-writing with displacements in the very subjects occupying the positions of sender and addressee, linking the progressive verbs describing the process of writing – what *evolves underneath one's own hand* – with the spectral selves of sender and receiver, specters produced by temporal lags and their acknowledgements. The displacements of temporality inherent to epistolarity are also intimately connected to the displacements of travel. Naficy has described the effects of these displacements in a way that can be applied more broadly to the epistolary's relationship to travel and to uniting however tenuously distant geographic places: "Whatever form the epistle takes [...] it becomes in the words of Linda Kauffman, 'a metonymic and a metaphoric displacement of desire' (1986: 83) – the desire to be with an other and to reimagine an elsewhere and other times" (Naficy, 2001: 101).

The relationship between the possibility of spectral or alternative selves which Kafka's remarks suggest to be somewhat inherent to epistolary form and the desire that Naficy discusses here, help to illuminate how films like Benning's and Cohen's lean upon epistolary enunciation to imagine selfhood and contingency in the face of the universal dictates of globalized late capitalism. The possibility for what Cavell has called an "aversive self" (1991: 36-37), cultivated by Emerson and Thoreau, and a self that escapes the pressures of conformity at a contemporary moment when the structures of a global society are increasingly homogenous and homogenizing, is thus related to the epistolary's central in-betweens as Kafka's description suggests what identities for sender and receiver develop in-between moments of transcription and transmission. The possibilities for alternatives to life in the present that resonate through the desire Naficy describes and are implied by the myriad subjective positions the epistolary illuminates through the temporality of its form, exemplifies the basic conflict at work in Transcendentalist thought between conformity and individualism. Cavell argues of Thoreau's prose in *Walden* that: "It must live, if it can, pressed between history and heaven" (1992: 8-9), quoting Thoreau on "improving the nick of time [...] to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and
the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line” (1985: 19). What Cavell describes as the power of “*Walden’s dialectic*” (1992:7) suggests the power to “reimagine an elsewhere and other times” (Naficy, 2001: 101) inherent to the very contingency of the present moment, that inscribed in the process of writing is an othering of the self and a suspension between past and future that provides a space of infinite possibility for the emergence of someone and something radically different from what history and society dictate.

## 6. Epistolary cinema and the American intellectual tradition

I have argued throughout this essay that conceiving of works like Benning’s and Cohen’s as epistolary in nature helps locate their participation in an American intellectual tradition defined by Transcendentalism and Pragmatism, a tradition that courses through how both filmmakers approach the particularities of contemporary global subjectivity. The influence of such a tradition (which, following Thoreau’s and Emerson’s non-conformist messages might better be conceived of as an antitradition) is particularly evident in *Stemple Pass* and *Two Cabins*, and their comparisons between the cabins, journals and philosophies of Henry David Thoreau and Ted Kasczynski. What Cavell has described as “the general relation [Thoreau] perceives as ‘being next to’” (1992: 104) is critical for Cavell’s notion of an *aversive self* who is able to constantly step outside of a given context to assess its limitations and to found alternative thoughts and ways of being in the world. This *being next to* is inherent to the epistolary structures of the films I’ve examined where binaries and dialectics have represented both the dangers and oppressions of commerce’s exchanges and the conflict between nature and industry, and have also helped locate individualism and difference to oppose otherwise homogenizing structures and systems of 21st century capitalism. Thus, through *Counting, Chain*, and *Stemple Pass* course a Transcendentalist tendency of being beside oneself, being outside of society, a skeptic to both tradition and tuition, replacing each, dialectically, with individualism and intuition. This is something we see as much in the outsider status of Cohen’s camera in *Counting*, which occupies predominantly exterior spaces through static long-takes that embody the sense of someone looking *onto* a place rather than occupying it, as we do in Benning’s commitment to societal outcasts and outsiders exemplified by his putting in parallel the lives of Thoreau and the Unabomber. This *being next to* or being outside, evokes fundamental qualities of epistolary form; both the binary positions of sender and receiver, and the instigation of the epistolary to both transcend or overcome distance and to mine distance as a space of thought.

The embrace of contingency embedded in the long-takes employed by both Cohen and Benning is essential for thinking of their work in relation to Transcendentalist thought where contingency is everywhere evident in Thoreau’s and Emerson’s embrace of the everyday and the renewed encounters to be located therein, what Emerson refers to as “the materials strewn along the ground” (2000: 55) and in the particularities of Thoreau’s attendance to the minutiae of his life on Walden Pond. The possibilities for change and otherness are located not out there, somewhere in the future – what Rorty would call “a truth that is found”– but right *here* – “a truth that is made” (Rorty, 1989: 7) – in Cohen’s and Benning’s shared attention to what other cinemas might deem insignificant or *missable*. This is evident the everyday details of urban
life upon which Cohen’s camera dwells in *Counting and Chain* and the details of the Unabomber’s life in the woods, the specifics enumerated through the voiceover of what he has eaten, how much ammunition he’s spent, the materials he’s used on the cabin, lists and descriptions that recall Walden’s lists. Locating contingent possibilities for radical difference in the everyday is inherent to the tendency of epistolary form to take-up the everyday but contingency also resides in the interstitial nature of the exchange of letters, the temporal aporia that function as spaces where the previously unthought or undiscovered might occur. The epistolary’s dependency upon an always-evolving *process* of thought transmitted over the course of writing a letter and the inevitable changes inscribed in the temporality of its transmission from sender to receiver, works against both Minh-ha’s *totalized quest for meaning and* the notion of a *truth that is found* which American Pragmatism (the inheritor of Transcendentalism’s wayward impulses) emphatically replaced with a *truth that is made*, a truth that is constantly (re)founded in every step of the path. Key to this “finding as founding” as Stanley Cavell (1991: xviii) described Emerson’s philosophy, was the very form of Emerson’s aphoristic essays as much as the form of Thoreau’s diaries which both afforded the liberating encounter with a phrase or a word that could stand on its own, where meaning could truly be found in the very *means* of the work, and thinking could take place as an evolving process over the course of reading or listening rather than being found at the end. It is no wonder then that form is similarly so integral to suspending the spectator and filmmaker within processes of thought when it comes to the epistolary film. The binary, dialectic, and aporetic form of the epistolary signals what a number of essay films do through their very means. Benning’s and Cohen’s films particularly put forth through their binaries aporias emblematic of both the loss and alienation of the self in the contemporary world *and* the figure of self-as-other that bespeaks the independence of an outsider’s disruptive perspective.

7. References

Altman, Janet Gurkin. (1982). *Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form*. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Benjamin, Walter. (1977). *The Origin of German Tragic Drama*. London: Verso.

Benning, James. (2011). *Two Cabins*. New York: A.R.T. Press.

Barwenczik, Lucas. (2015). “Review of *Counting*”. *Kino-Zeit*. Retrieved from https://www.kino-zeit.de/film-kritiken-trailer/counting

Cavell, Stanley. (1991). *Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cavell, Stanley. (1992). *Senses of Walden: An Expanded Edition*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cavell, Stanley. (2005). “Something out of the Ordinary”. In William Rothman (ed.), *Cavell on Film*. New York: State University of New York Press, 223-240.

Cohen, Jem. (2015). “Director’s Statement”. *Jem Cohen Films*. Retrieved from https://jem-cohenfilms.com/counting/

Corrigan, Tim. (2011). *The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Doane, Mary Ann. (2002). *The Emergence of Cinematic Time*. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. (2000). *The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson*. New York; Toronto: Modern Library Classics.

Minh-ha, Trinh T., (1993). "The Totalizing Quest of Meaning". In Michael Renov (ed.), *Theorizing Documentary*. New York; London: Routledge Press, 90-107.

Naficy, Hamid. (2001). *An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking*. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Rascaroli, Laura. (2017). *How the Essay Film Thinks*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rorty, Richard. (1989). *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thoreau, Henry David. (1855). *Walden or, Life in the Woods*. New York: Literary Classics of the United States.
<figure><img src="image_44.png" /></figure>
# History, Power, and Incomplete Epistolarity in Post-Soviet Cinema<fnref n="1" />

Seth Graham<fnref n="2" />

Submitted: 08th September 2019. Approved: 28th October 2019

**Abstract.** This article examines epistolary enunciation in the recent cinema of former Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine, and Estonia), and in particular how filmmakers use the letter device in their engagements with their nations' past, present, and future. After discussing the post-Soviet epistolary through the prism of the region's history, with reference to Altman (1982) and Naficy (2001), the article analyses the device in specific films. Recent examples often follow the Soviet-era model of the letter as a medium for contact not only (or primarily) between individuals, but also for more abstract kinds of contact, between distinct realms of human existence and consciousness: East and West, Public and Private, Life and Death/Afterlife, Freedom and Captivity, Science and Superstition, Authenticity and Imposture, History and Contemporaneity. The meanings created via epistolary efforts to bridge such gaps – by the characters and the filmmakers – are central to the post-Soviet cinematic project of national and individual introspection.

**Key Words:** epistolary film; Russian cinema; Ukrainian cinema; Estonian cinema; Soviet cinema

## [es] Historia, poder y epistolaridad incompleta en el cine postsoviético

**Resumen.** Este artículo examina la enunciación epistolar en el cine reciente de las antiguas repúblicas soviéticas (Rusia, Ucrania y Estonia) y, en particular, cómo los cineastas utilizan el dispositivo de la carta en sus compromisos con el pasado, presente y futuro de sus naciones. Tras abordar el epistolario postsoviético a través del prisma histórico de la región, en relación con los trabajos de Altman (1982) y Naficy (2001), el artículo analiza este dispositivo en películas específicas. Los ejemplos recientes a menudo siguen el modelo de la carta de la era soviética como medio de contacto no solo (o principalmente) entre individuos, sino también para tipos de contacto más abstractos, entre esferas distintas de la existencia y la conciencia humana: Oriente y Occidente, Público y Privado, Vida y Muerte/Más allá, Libertad y Cautiverio, Ciencia y Superstición, Autenticidad e Impostura, Historia y Contemporaneidad. Los significados creados a través de los esfuerzos epistolares para superar esos vacíos –por parte de los personajes y los cineastas– son fundamentales para el proyecto cinematográfico postsoviético de introspección nacional e individual.

**Palabras clave:** cine epistolar; cine ruso; cine ucraniano; cine estonio; cine soviético

## [fr] Histoire, pouvoir et épistolarité incomplète dans le cinéma post-soviétique

**Résumé.** Cet article examine l'énonciation épistolaire dans le cinéma récent des anciennes républiques soviétiques (Russie, Ukraine et Estonie) et, en particulier, la manière dont les cinéastes utilisent le dis-

<footnote n="1">¹ I am grateful to Rachel Morley, Phil Cavendish, Uilleam Blacker, and especially Julian Graffy for suggesting several Russian and Soviet epistolary films and literary works of which I was unaware.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² University College London (UK)
E-mail: s.graham@ucl.ac.uk</footnote>
positif de la lettre dans leurs engagements avec le passé, le présent et le futur de leurs nations. Après avoir abordé l'épistolaire post-soviétique à travers le prisme historique de la région, par rapport aux travaux de Altman (1982) et Naficy (2001), l'article analyse ce dispositif dans des films spécifiques. Les exemples récents suivent souvent le modèle de la lettre de l'ère soviétique en tant que moyen de contact non seulement (ou principalement) entre individus, mais aussi pour des types de contacts plus abstraits, entre des sphères distinctes de l'existence et de la conscience humaines : Est et Ouest, Public et Privé, Vie et Mort/Au-delà, Liberté et Captivité, Science et Superstition, Authenticité et Imposture, Histoire et Contemporanéité. Les significations créées par les efforts épistolaires pour dépasser ces vides – de la part des personnages et des cinéastes – sont au cœur du projet cinématographique post-soviétique d'introspection nationale et individuelle.

**Mots clés :** cinéma épistolaire ; cinéma russe ; cinéma ukrainien ; cinéma estonien ; cinéma soviétique

**Summary.** 1. Introduction. Epistolary Dissidence in the Post-Soviet Space. 2. *Forbidden Empire* (2014) by Oleg Stepchenko. 3. *You Won't Leave Me...* (2006) by Alla Surikova. 4. *In the Crosswind* (2014) by Martti Helde. 5. *Mira* (2018) by Denis Shabaev. 6. Conclusion. 7. References.

**How to cite this article.** Graham, Seth (2019). History, Power, and Incomplete Epistolarity in Post-Soviet Cinema. *Area Abierta. Revista de comunicación audiovisual y publicitaria* 19 (3), 383-399.
https://dx.doi.org/10.5209/arab.65501

# 1. Introduction: Epistolary dissidence in the post-Soviet space

In her influential book *Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form* (1982), Janet Gurkin Altman succinctly defines *epistolarity* as a property of some literary texts in which “the creation of meaning derives from the structures and potential specific to the letter form” (4). That form is most recognizably characterised, in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc as much as elsewhere in the world, by the necessary presence of a second-person addressee in an otherwise first-person text, a perspectival mixture that is made even more complex when the letter is embedded in a novel with a third-person narrator, or a narrator who is not the letter-writer (to say nothing – yet – of the added complexity when embedded in a visual narrative). Altman goes on to describe the particular relationship between the two consciousnesses linked by the epistolary form: “In letter language, [...] the addressee plays a role; he [sic] is able, and is expected, to initiate his own utterance. Such reciprocality whereby the original *you* becomes the *I* of a new utterance is essential to the maintenance of the epistolary exchange” (1982: 117). As we will see, the *letter language* in many films from the post-Soviet<fnref n="3" /> space (and indeed in many Soviet films) modifies, challenges, or even rejects this obligatory *reciprocality* between writer and recipient. These films often do this by featuring types of letter that do not comfortably fit within canonical descriptions of the medium: published open letters, forged letters, letters to dead or unreal addressees, and letters collectively written (by a *we* rather than an *I*) and/or addressed to a specified group of people rather than to a singular Other. There are

<footnote n="3">³ In this article I occasionally use problematic terms such as *post-Soviet* or *former Eastern Bloc* not to suggest that the contemporary cinema of Estonia, Ukraine, and Russia is legible only with reference to their common geopolitical ancestor, or that filmmakers in any of these countries are mere epigones of political and artistic conditions that are now three decades in the past, but as a form of convenient shorthand to refer to this region and some of the relevant shared legacies that are still topics of critical representation.</footnote>
other, more subtle meaningful diversions from the traditional logic of the letter form
that are achieved through the use of it in specifically cinematic ways.

With this tendency to diverge from accepted constituent features of epistolarity in
mind, in what follows I analyse the functions of the letter device in recent films from
three former Soviet republics: Russia, Ukraine, and Estonia. After briefly situating
the device in the artistic traditions and historical cultural politics of the region, I will
focus on how my chosen examples use various forms of what I will call *incomplete
epistolarity* to, paradoxically, close gaps and collapse distances not between people
(correspondents), but between the poles of more or less abstract binary concepts
with particular significance in the former Second World: East and West, Public and
Private, Life and Death/Afterlife, Freedom and Captivity, Science and Superstition,
Authenticity and Imposture, History and Contemporaneity. The ways in which the
films use the letter form to engage with these categories are often dependent on yet
another conceptual dyad that is even more native to the Soviet sphere of which these
countries were a part: power and powerlessness.

Another defining characteristic of epistolary discourse according to Altman is
what she calls its “temporal polyvalence”: “The temporal aspect of any given epis-
tolary statement is relative to innumerable moments: the actual time that an act de-
scribed is performed; the moment when it is written down; the respective times that
the letter is dispatched, received, read, or reread” (1982: 118). The use of the letter
device in cinema, a medium that of course has its own complex relationship to time,
only broadens the artistic possibilities of Altman’s *polyvalence*, especially in films
that depict the historical past. Other distinctive features of the letter that are deployed
in epistolary storytelling include its implicit promise of shared privacy between the
writer/sender and reader/recipient, another seemingly obvious letter-quality that,
embedded in a larger narrative, can be a powerful and versatile vehicle for dramatic
irony, suspense, and other effects. This characteristic, too, has had a distinctive res-
onance in the countries of the former Soviet sphere, where the boundaries between
public and private were often fraught and fluid. Actual letter-writing in the Soviet
period and even before was, like all forms of expression and communication media,
frequently coded as political. The politics of the Stalin period in particular created
an atmosphere in which written communication was fraught with danger or sim-
ply impossible. Intercepted letters were used to prosecute and imprison thousands
of Soviet political arrestees, including Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Letters home from
soldiers at war, ubiquitous in Soviet films<fnref n="4" />, are still a common filmic trope. Letters
of denunciation, as well as letters to Stalin and other leaders<fnref n="5" /> pleading for mercy,
figure prominently in Soviet historiography and cultural production, especially since
the end of censorship in the late-1980s, which was the beginning of a public, critical
interrogation of Soviet history across all media that continues today.

A common official Stalin-era euphemism for a death sentence – “ten years [in a labour camp] without the right to correspondence” – became the title of Vladimir Naumov’s 1990 film-expose of the period, *Ten Years Without Right to Write Letters (Desiat let bez prava perepiski)*. In Georgian director Tengiz Abuladze’s *Repentance*

<footnote n="4">⁴ See Walsh, Susie. (2005). “Friendly Fire: epistolary voice-over in Terrence Malick’s *The Thin Red Line*.” *Literature/Film Quaterly*, 33(4), 306-312.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ See Surovtseva, E. V. (2010). *Zhanr “pis’ma vozhdiu” v sovetskuiu epokhu (1950-e – 1980-e gg.)* Moscow: Airo.XXI. (The genre of the “letter to the leader” in the Soviet Period, 1950s-1980s).</footnote>
(Monanieba, 1984), an allegorical film about Stalinism, relatives of those who received that sentence take devastated solace in another form of message: their disappeared loved ones, in a faraway logging camp, carved their names on the bottoms of logs that arrive in the town by train (Image 1). This suggests a link between the letter and the monument or memorial.

<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>Image 1. *Repentance* (Tengiz Abuladze, 1984). Source: Screenshot.</figcaption></figure>

The epistolary novel may have been less popular than in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with Fyodor Dostoevsky's early work *Poor Folk* (*Bednye liudi*, 1846) a notable exception, but letters certainly feature as narrative devices in any number of classic works by Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, and others, often with the familiar functions of producing dramatic irony, melodramatically enhancing the affectual plane of the plot, and allowing for extended first-person narration within an otherwise third-person narrative.<fnref n="6" /> Despite its shared connotations of personal intimacy and even lyricism, however, the letter in Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet cultures – more so than in the West – has frequently had quite a different association: with expressions of political power and of individual and collective resistance to such power. The medium's representation in the *belles-lettres* and other arts of Russia and its historical sphere of influence have long reflected this association. Its function as a discursive venue for the playing out of power dynamics has expanded its generic potential beyond the features detailed by Altman and others.

The famously venomous sixteenth-century correspondence between Tsar Ivan the Terrible and the exiled Prince Kurbskii comes to mind (Kurbskii, 1955), as does the vulgar, insulting reply from the Ukrainian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan's letter-

<footnote n="6">⁶ See for example Tatiana's letter in Pushkin's *Eugene Onegin* (1825), the letters between Anna and her lover Vronsky in Tolstoy's *Anna Karenina* (1877), and the letter from father to son in Turgenev's novella *First Love* (1860).</footnote>