New Trends in Argentine and Brazilian Cinema (review)

Over the past ten years there has been an interest in comparative studies on Brazil and Hispanic America; however, critical and comparative studies of Latin American cinematography are clearly underrepresented in scholarly publications worldwide. In this sense, this volume is crucial for the understanding of the various relations, similarities, and differences, between Argentina and Brazil, not only aesthetically but also historically. Since David William Foster’s Contemporary Argentine Cinema (University of Missouri Press, 1992) and Randal Johnson and Robert Stam’s Brazilian Cinema (Columbia University Press, 1995), we have witnessed a series of publications in Spanish, Portuguese, and English analyzing the cinematic production in both countries, such as New Argentine Cinema (2002) by Horacio Bernardes, Diego Lerer, and Sergio Wolf; The New Brazilian Cinema (2003) and A Utopia do Cinema Brasileiro (2006), both by Lúcia Nagib; Generaciones 60/90 cine argentino independiente (2003) by Fernando Martín Peña; Um balanço crítico da retomada (2003) by Daniel Caetano; The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film (2007) by Tamara Falicov; and Other Worlds: New Argentine Film (2008) by Gonzalo Aguilar; among others. The originality of Rêgo and Rocha’s edited book relies, mainly, on offering a new comparative approach to the cinematographic production of both countries from a triple fulcrum: economic, political, and social. The essays establish a multilayered net of channels that suggest parallels never before explored between Argentina and Brazil. Specifically, the book addresses a comparative study through the effects of governmental legislations as well as political and economic crises on the production, distribution, and aesthetic modes of representations of films produced from 1995 to 2006. The neoliberal economic policies implemented by Fernando Collor de Mello (1990–92) in Brazil and Carlos Saúl Menem (1989–99) in Argentina had decisive impact in a varied spectrum of state institutions. As regards the cultural sphere, these policies led national film production to a crisis, or better, a series of crises originated by the central role of the State as a negligent entity.

The book is divided into an introduction and sixteen essays separated by three nuclei: “Funding,” “Class, Citizens and Spatial Relations,” and “Gender.” The first two essays of the volume, written by the editors, present a necessary frame for the general understanding of the intricate net of economic and political milieu transitions that affected cinematic industries. In the first group of essays, the authors create a series of synchronic and diachronic parallelisms; for instance, the dismantling of the state film enterprises during 1990, they suggest, is not only the consequence of neoliberalism and globalization, but also the result of lacking a system that supports domestic production and ensures national films’ circulation and distribution, promoting the interest of domestic audiences. In other words, it can be translated as portraying the little importance that culture itself had for the State in Latin America during the 1900s. Indeed, Argentine and Brazilian cinematic production gained strength after 1995 with the implementation of audiovisual laws. The “Pós-Retomada” period is carefully analyzed by Courtney Brannon Donogue. She signals this shift in Brazilian film industry with the entry of Rede Globo into the cinematic arena, when the impact of private investment entering the national market changed the media landscape. The term “integration” comes to mind after reading Donogue’s conclusions, yet a different side of the integration process, advocated by the neoliberal politics and formalized by the Mercosur, is presented to us. Hence, Marina Mogullansky’s contribution is a necessary continuing dialogue with the previous essays. Her work connects the “Retomada” with the “new Argentine cinema”; specifically, she structures her essay by presenting four challenging questions that address issues such as the limits of these policies or the legitimacy of Mercosur as a space for regulating cultural productions and promoting integration in the area of cinematography. Tamara L. Falicov’s “New Visions of Patagonia” serves as a bridge between the first and second set of essays where authors...