Brazilian Cinema and the Aesthetics of Ruins

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WINNER of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) 2023 Award for Best First Monograph WINNER of the Association of Moving Image Researchers (AIM) 2022 Best Monograph prize Guilherme Carrras compelling book examines imagery of ruins in contemporary Brazilian cinema and considers these representations in the context of Brazilian society. Carrra analyses three groups of unconventional documentaries focused on distinct geographies: Braslia - The Age of Stone (2013) and White Out, Black In (2014); Rio de Janeiro - ExPerimetral (2016), The Harbour (2013), Tropical Curse (2016) and HU Enigma (2011); and indigenous territories - Corumbiara: They Shoot Indians, Dont They (2009), Tava, The House of Stone (2012), Two Villages, One Path (2008) and Guarani Exile (2011). In portraying ruinscapes in different ways, these powerful films articulate critiques of the notions of progress and (under) development in the Brazilian nation. Carrra invites the reader to walk amid the debris and reflect upon the strategies of spatial representation employed by the filmmakers. He addresses this body of films in relation to the legacies of Cinema Novo, Tropiclia and Cinema Marginal, asking how these presentday films dialogue with or depart from previous traditions. Through this dialogue, he argues, the selected films challenge not only documentary-making conventions but also the countrys official narrative.

Reviews

This is an intriguing walk amidst Brazilian ruins, from the outskirts of the capital to a Jesuit building in an indigenous area. By looking at those testimonies of underdevelopment, the author unfolds an extraordinary series of Brazilian singularities, but also illuminates our past, present and future in a neoliberal world. -- Albert Elduque Busquets, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
This timely addition to existing scholarship in English on Brazilian cinema provides an original and persuasive argument for situating contemporary production within a wider aesthetics of ruin and decay. Both accessible and academically rigorous, this volume will appeal to students and established scholars alike. -- Lisa Shaw, University of Liverpool, UK
A densely synthetic and eminently readable capsule overview of Brazilian Cinema filtered through the imagistic-theoretical grid of ruins as a metaphor both for artistic creativity and social devastation. After the celebrated aesthetics of poverty, hunger, and garbage, the book offers a multi-faceted aesthetics of ruination, all in relation to larger themes of indigeneity and modernity. -- Robert Stam, New York University, USA

Author Bio

Guilherme Carrra holds a PhD in Film from the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, at the University of Westminster, in London, United Kingdom. His project was sponsored by the CAPES Foundation (Ministry of Education, Brazil).