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Conflicting Emotions: Globalization and Decoloniality in También la lluvia



Author(s)

Erika Bondi

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2016.05.004

It is not difficult to understand the success of También la lluvia (2010) starring the internationally recognized Mexican actor Gael García Bernal. The coproduction among France, Spain, and Mexico succeeds in creating film that gains critical as well as commercial attention for its treatment of the theme of globalization as well as for its aesthetic quality. The Spanish director, Icíar Boallaín heavily employs metacinematography, metanarrative, and intertextuality in the film but loses subtlety in conveying the message of globalization as a continuation of colonization. As the study of the aforementioned themes has been exhausted, this analysis focuses on the role and representation of the emotions that are shaped by the global economic circumstance of capitalism, consumerism, and globalization. I will analyze and compare the emotions of the western characters with that of the indigenous characters in Bolivia to demonstrate how the filmic representations of emotions are influenced by the understanding of history, culture, and society. This analysis attempts to reveal how the western subjects struggle to locate their emotions resulting in their displacement in representations of information and simulations of reality that have lost their connection with the original referent. On the other hand, the indigenous’ emotional repertoire is based on their direct interaction with the land and their community. Furthermore, the first people appear to have inherited and cultivated their emotions as a community, which motivate them to act collectively to continue their incessant struggle against exploitation and colonization. Through this study, I hope to explore the relationship between the emotions and decoloniality by identifying how cultivation of emotions could have a major impact in questioning the Eurocentric episteme imposed onto the periphery.

decoloniality, emotions, emotionology, postemotionalism, latin American film