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- Title
Cine de choque: Image culture, the absence of the patriarch and violence in Alejandro Amenábar's Abre los ojos (1997).
- Authors
THAKKAR, AMIT
- Abstract
This article proposes that Alejandro Amenábar's Abre los ojos (1997) is an example of what I term cine de choque, a specifically Hispanophone category of film in which the word choque - translatable as 'crash', 'shock' or 'clash' in English - informs both theme and aesthetics. In this particular example of cine de choque, an aesthetic is created on the basis of a structure in which lulls are almost as important as the film's crash, shocks and clashes. The film's lull-choque-lull aesthetic, I argue, emphasizes the allure of image and false explanations in the life of the protagonist César. This allure is partly explained by the absence of authoritative, patriarchal figures: both his parents are dead and the older male figures which compete for his attention prove tobe unreliable. The resulting evocation of a culturally and historically orphaned youth culture in Spain helps to contextualize the film's acts of violence.
- Subjects
AESTHETIC experience; VIOLENCE in motion pictures; ABRE los ojos (Film); AMENABAR, Alejandro, 1972-; PATRIARCHY in motion pictures
- Publication
New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 2011, Vol 9, Issue 1, p19
- ISSN
1474-2756
- Publication type
Film/Television Criticism
- DOI
10.1386/ncin.9.1.19_1