Triz and “Tristeza”: The Representation of the Colonial Past in “The Metamorphosis of Birds” by Catarina Vasconcelos
Marta Aksztin
marta.aksztin@gmail.comUniversity of Warsaw (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7603-7509
Abstract
The article examines the ways in which colonial memory is represented in contemporary Portuguese cinema, based on the example of The Metamorphosis of Birds (A Metamorfose dos Pássaros, dir. Catarina Vasconcelos, 2020). Starting from a formal analysis of the artistic choices made in the film, the author traces the mechanisms of individual and collective memory work as well as the strategies of representation or silencing of the topics related to Portuguese imperialism. The central concept for the development of the main argument is the category of saudade and the “saudadic subject” proposed by Eduardo Lourenço. The author considers it in the context of the classical psychoanalytic concept of mourning and melancholia and the category of nostalgia proposed by Svetlana Boym, tracing the links between saudade and the Portuguese colonial imaginary. The genre of autobiographical cinematic documentary-fiction is considered here as a tool for overwriting history that allows fantasising on its possible versions.
Keywords:
memory, saudade, nostalgia, colonialism, Portugese cinema, Catarina VasconcelosReferences
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Authors
Marta Aksztinmarta.aksztin@gmail.com
University of Warsaw Poland
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7603-7509
Graduate in Cultural Studies from the Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw; former student of the Academy of Theatre Arts in Krakow. She currently studies at Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas at the Nova University in Lisbon, Portugal. She works on interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of performing arts and art installation. Co-founder of Colapso Plataforma Criativa, an intercultural art research space based in Lisbon. Her research interests focus on collective memory and its discursive representations.
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