Issue 9 - 2022 (1)

This issue of Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Essays offers a broad collection of views and themes. It takes us to regrettably common places within the collective imaginary, such as the police raid, address the expression of coloniality via the aesthetic utilization of the long take, undertake an exploration of U.S. petro-masculinity, reflect on the perception of time in “slow cinema”, approach nationalism within contemporary South Korean blockbusters and, finally, study the use of voiceover narration from a gender perspective within the video essay format. Like in other issues, the featured works are extraordinarily miscellaneous. They are both in Spanish and English. 

Additionally, we are proud to showcase three works by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid students, made within the curricular trajectory of the Bachelor’s Degree in Film, TV and Media Studies.

Lastly, in the section “From the Archive”, as part of the commemorations of the centenary of the birth of filmmaker Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis Cemillán recounts a little known episode for the general public in the extraordinary career of the director.. 

We go on… Enjoy, please. 

Coloniality, the Backstage, and the Long Take
Márton Árva (Eötvös Loránd University) – 09:36
This audiovisual essay analyzes the sensory expression of coloniality in a long take that follows the protagonist, a live-in domestic worker, in Anna Muylaert’s film The Second Mother (Que Horas Ela Volta?, 2015).
Keywords: coloniality; long take; domestic labor; politics of affect; Brazilian cinema

Drill, baby, drill. Petro-masculinity in the United States cinema.
Ariadna Cordal (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) – 8:50
Starting with the concept of petro-masculinity, this video essay traces the archaeology of the United States petroleum film, linking it with the Western genre to unravel how nature is represented.
Keywords: petro-masculinity, western, ecocriticism, United States cinema

Police Force(s)
Edurne Larumbe Villareal (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) & Abraham Roberto Rea Núñez (Universidade De Santiago de Compostela)  –  05:09
This video-essay approaches a certain iconography of the police raid, reviewing its cinematographic, TV, and journalistic images to compare them with those taken in the streets through the smartphone. It is through a type of “disciplinary gesture” that bodies become one: police institution as State machinery.
Keywords: police raid, iconography, discipline, gesture, Foucault

Temporal Ghosts | David Lowery’s “A Ghost Story”
Enrique Saunders (University of Reading) – 06:40
This audiovisual essay researches the effects of slow cinema on the viewer in A Ghost Story (2017). It intends to provoke reflection on the perception of time during long takes.
Keywords: slow cinema, long take, A Ghost Story, temporality, realism

With the Voice Present: “Imperfect” Video-Essays during Quarantine
Michelle Leigh Farrell (Fairfield University) – 07:50
This audiovisual essay deals with the use of voice-over in terms of gender beyond an English-language focus within the video-essay genre. I argue that the audiovisual essay  in Spanish can serve as a tool to challenge the limits of the classroom, while also placing the video-essay work in dialogue with multiple communities.
Keywords: voice-over, “imperfect cinema”, Garwood, pandemic, gender

The exaltation of nationalism in the Korean blockbuster: Ode to my father and Roaring Currents.
Sonia Dueñas Mohedas (University Carlos III of Madrid)  – 12:56
This video essay reflects on Park’s use of film as a propaganda tool made to enhance her popularity during the most crisis-ridden stages of her term in office by appealing to national pride through historical memory.
Keywords: South Korea, nationalism, blockbuster, historical memory, Korean cinema

Student Showcase

Classic and Modern Avant-garde. Surrealism
Elena González Janot, Leire De la Peña Aoiz & Natalia Bermúdez Pérez (University Carlos III of Madrid) – 12:10
This video essay takes a brief historical look at the main examples of surrealist cinema and its influence on some of the great names in modern and contemporary cinema.
Keywords: surrealism, avant-garde, Buñuel, Kubrick

The voice in film
Alejandro Torres Almendros  (University Carlos III of Madrid) – 06:57
This paper presents the main concepts revolving around the use of voice in film. The concept of ‘the acousmatic’ is explained employing canonical examples from classical cinema, which are used to show the centrality of the voice in filmic perception.
Keywords: voice, acusmaser, Michel Chion

Sitcoms
Santiago Gómez Chacón, Daniel Guijarro Hernanz, David Ildefonso Trabada & Verónica Antoñanzas Martínez (University Carlos III of Madrid) – 15:56
This video essay examines the history and characteristics of the sitcom subgenre from its beginnings, exposing the most paradigmatic television fictions of each period.
Keywords: sitcom, comedy, Friends

From the Archive

bardem

A risky misunderstanding. The three islands of Juan Antonio Bardem

On the centenary of Juan Antonio Bardem, an essential figure of our cinematographic memory, we review one of the most complex episodes of his career, sometimes labeled as irregular: that of La Isla Misteriosa (1973) and its tripartite result (a montage for the Spanish version, a second for the Italian and another for the one released in France). Trying to elucidate the motives and dissimilar results of the three montages allows us to question the authorial readings of Bardem, the most widely rehearsed to date, and to shed light on new perspectives on the work of this filmmaker.

Section curated by Luis Cemillán Casis (University Carlos III of Madrid)

 

Tecmerin. Revista de Ensayos Audiovisuales
ISSN: 2659-4269
© Grupo de Investigación Tecmerin
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid