VANISHING POINTS

PERCEPTUAL DEVICES FOR

DEPICTING THE VILLA MISERIA
IN THE FILMS OF CÉSAR
GONZÁLEZ
MARIANO VELIZ

INTRODUCTION reference to Jacques Rancière’s discussion of the

possibility that marginalised sectors may become
One of the biggest debates in the world of con- creators of images and discourses. Following this
temporary art revolves around whether it is ap- line of thought, this article will examine the ten-
propriate to refer to a fixed definition of the iden- dency to interpret González’s films on the basis
tity processes of artists in order to establish their of preconceptions that assume that a filmmaker
position in the art world. Articulated between born in a villa miseria1 would film these spaces and
the notion of “strategic essentialism” proposed their inhabitants in a way that challenges con-
by Gayatri Spivak and its rebuttal by Nicolas ventional depictions. To do this, the theoretical
Bourriaud is a territory in tension, marked by a discussion offered will need to be complemented
proliferation of reflections on the relevance or by a historical overview of representations of so-
irrelevance of the geographical origins of identi- cial marginalisation in Argentine cinema. Once
ties in the context of globalised art. In this sense, this overview has been presented, the main ob-
the production of the Argentine filmmaker César jective of this article will be to examine the first
González poses the challenge of identifying the two feature films directed by González to identi-
limitations of essentialist policies that seek to find fy, in their materiality, the perceptual devices de-
explanations for an artist’s work in that artist’s signed to depict the bodies of the characters and
origins. To meet this challenge, the dispute be- their complex interactions with the films’ tempo-
tween Spivak and Bourriaud can be nuanced with ral and spatial dimensions.

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THE VOICE AND/OR SILENCE OF THE In Other Worlds: Essays on Cultural Politics (1987).
BODIES OF THE POPULAR CLASSES For Spivak, in the context of their emancipatory
processes, different colonial or neo-colonial so-
Despite widespread acceptance of the theories as- cieties may recognise the effectiveness of estab-
serting the death of the author since the 1960s, lishing ashared cultural identity which, while it
critical approaches to the films of César González may not necessarily be subjected to an essential-
seem incapable of avoiding the inclusion of ref- ist logic, nevertheless flattens certain differences
erences to both the filmmaker’s personal back- depending on the importance or urgency of par-
ground and his explicit intentions. In all cases, it is ticular ideological battles. This gives rise to a set of
assumed that his poetry and films can be explained ideas that provisionally defines the identities (eth-
by empirical data in a way that would not be pos- nic, social, national) of individuals, to which their
sible for other poets or filmmakers. This confi- internal heterogeneity is subordinated.
dence in his biography as a source for explaining While for Spivak, strategic essentialism is con-
his work is inevitably related to his origins and his ceived as a cultural substance creating an identi-
current circumstances as an inhabitant of a villa tythat can allow the subaltern to speak in the con-
miseria. The scarcity (or complete absence) of film- text of a globalised world, Bourriaud examines the
makers born in squatter settlements has resulted effects arising from the implementation of this
in the exclusive definition of his poetry and film- kind of strategy in different contexts. In Radicante
ography based on this background.2 (2009) he thus discusses the use of this classification
in the context of post-colonial studies. Bourriaud
frames its use in the context of post-modern aes-
THE SCARCITY (OR COMPLETE ABSENCE) thetic politeness, whereby artists from peripheral
OF FILMMAKERS BORN IN SQUATTER nations may become exotic guests on the cultural
SETTLEMENTS HAS RESULTED IN THE scene but never protagonists. Their participation
EXCLUSIVE DEFINITION OF HIS POETRY depends on the strangeness of their origins from
AND FILMOGRAPHY BASED ON THIS the perspective of the dominant spaces in the art
BACKGROUND world. In this state of affairs, strategic essential-
ism merely replicates the operation of the polic-
ing systems that aim to classify identities, and
A brief perusal of González’s biography3 re- therefore enters into the game of the hegemonic
veals the interest that both mainstream and al- forces by re-territorialising individuals who do
ternative media have taken in his identity.4 His not fit into the standardised identity models. Be-
story, articulated in a teleological and positivist cause it operates on the basis of anchoring their
manner, functions as an embodiment of the myth ethnic, national or cultural identities, it ties indi-
of meritocracy. However, before accepting that viduals to a single, stable place of enunciation. For
his biographical details contain the key to under- this reason, Bourriaud argues that post-colonial
standing the meaning of his films, it is worth ques- theory ascribes individuals to their roots. Those
tioning the reductionist nature of this tendency, roots would then be defined not only in terms of a
with reference to different debates that have mythical place of origin, but also as an ideal desti-
emerged in recent years in relation to such crit- nation. In this way, individuals are viewed on the
ical stances. One of these is Nicolas Bourriaud’s basis of this primary identification.
interrogation of the notion of “strategic essential- Bourriaud’s observations offer a background
ism” proposed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in for the discussion of this tendency to tie down

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identities that do not subscribe to hegemonic the mirages of representation?” (Rancière, 2010a:
models. However, Bourriaud also ignores the fact 39). The workers constituted the voiceless sur-
that the convenience of such classification is al- face of the reflections of the intellectuals. Their
most irresistible, and that we are therefore faced entry into the territory of the written word and
with the challenge of cultivating non-essential- their emergence as producers of images generat-
ist forms to incorporate into a definition (partial, ed a disruption in the world of literature and art.
complex, incomplete) of identity. In this respect, Determined to create another image and another
the philosophical ideas of Jacques Rancière points discourse of worker identity, they waged war on
in directions that may lead us out of this conun- the representations that had been developed pre-
drum. Rancière dedicated the first book he wrote viously. The political power of this appropriation
on his own, Proletarian Nights, first published in is overwhelming: “The beings intended to inhabit
1981, to an analysis of writings by young proletar- the invisible space of labour, which leaves no time
ians at the time of the French Revolution of 1830. to do anything else, take the time they do not have
For these workers, the night was the time stolen in order to affirm that they belong to a common
from sleep and from manual labour to be able to world, to make seen in it what was not seen, or to
write. It was a moment uprooted from the con- make heard as a word that argues about what is
tinuity of work and rest, an interruption in the common that which was only heard as a noise of
natural course of things. The act of writing initi- bodies” (Rancière, 2010b: 62). In light of the radical
ated a breakdown of the hierarchy that subordi- nature of this affirmation, Rancière feels the need
nated those who work with their hands to “those to ponder how these untapped capacities can be
endowed with the privilege of thought” (Rancière, awoken in the bodies of the popular classes.
2010a: 20). Following this line of argument, the tenden-
On those nights, the proletarians began to ex- cy to flag César González’s identity as a squatter
ist as individuals rather than objects of discourse. takes on great significance. In the strict distribu-
Rancière is sensitive to the complexity of the con- tion of the powers to see and speak, the emergence
nection that links these proletarians to the in- of a producer of images and discourses who was
tellectuals of his era. This is why he asserts that born in a squatter settlement could contribute to
“these people needed to exist already constituted a radical deconstruction of the old divisions of the
by others, doubly and irremediably excluded for visible, the audible, the thinkable, and the feasi-
living as workers and speaking as bourgeois peo- ble. On many different levels, his background is
ple did” (Rancière, 2010a:22). This convergence markedly different from that of most contempo-
of proletarians who write with intellectuals con- rary filmmakers. He received no formal academic
cerned about their living conditions was marked training (he took workshops with Luis Franc at
by a breakdown: the intellectuals were concerned the San Martín Cultural Centre in Buenos Aires),
about the suffering in silence of the workers. most of his productions have been made with-
They were the ones who presented themselves as out financial support from the State, and he does
spokespeople for the proletarian pain. With this not appear on the international festival circuit.
in mind, Rancière asks: “Isn’t there some sort of This marginalised position in the Argentine film
dodge in this fascination with the mute truth of industry is not unrelated to his socio-economic
the popular body, in these evocations of another and cultural origins. At the same time, it should
culture that the workers—the masses, the people, be borne in mind that this aspect of his history
the plebs—practice with enough contentment to exists in tension with facts such as his work on
leave to others the lacerations of conscience and a documentary series for the Encuentro channel

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(founded in 2007 by Argentina’s Federal System corporate a history, albeit concise, of such con-
of Public Media and Content), a level of media ventional depictions. In this complex history,
coverage that few other Argentine filmmakers forming part of Argentina’s social and political
have enjoyed in recent years, and the positive film tradition,5 these spaces appeared for the first
response his films have received from audiences, time in Argentine cinema in Suburb (Suburbio,
demonstrated by the number of views his work León Klimovsky, 1951). At that time, the Argen-
has registered on YouTube: over 650,000 views tine expression for a shanty town, “villa miseria”,
for Diagnóstico esperanza and 2,300,000 for ¿Qué was not yet in use, as this term was introduced by
puede un cuerpo? This data suggests that, despite Bernardo Verbitsky’s novel Villa miseria también es
González’s marginal status in the Argentine film América [The Shanty Town is America Too], pub-
world, he has found alternative routes to promote lished in 1957.6 In Suburbio, the people of the city
his filmography and acquire remarkable levels of are hostile towards the internal migrants who are
distribution and prominence. forced to leave their rural homes in the context
However, accepting the need to consider this of the country’s industrialising economic policies.
detail of his life and his current production condi- The poor migrants are depicted as victims of so-
tions is only possible if we can avoid two potential cial inequality and government ineptitude.7
hazards. The first is his insertion in Argentine and Towards the end of the 1950s, after Juan
Latin American film studies as an act of compas- Perón had been overthrown, a series of films
sion. In the aforementioned context of post-mod- were made which, for different reasons, included
ern politeness, the inclusion of peripheral film- depictions of villas miseria. Behind a Long Wall (De-
makers functions as a demonstration of political trás de un largo muro, Luca Demare, 1958), filmed
commitment that leaves no need to consider the in Villa Jardín in the city’s Lanús district, explores
aesthetic value of their work (given that for such the hardships caused by the processes of internal
considerations we have the films made by direc- migration. References to the growth of these set-
tors who have received training in recognised tlements can also be found in The Kidnapper (El
institutions of the bourgeois world). The second secuestrador, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, 1958), The
hazard is assuming that his birth in a villa miseria Candidate (El candidato, Fernando Ayala, 1959)
and his determination to challenge conventional and Chronicle of a Boy Alone (Crónica de un niño
and stereotypical representations means that his solo, Leonardo Favio, 1965). Documentaries in-
project will necessarily succeed in subverting that cluding such references include Buenos Aires (Da-
tradition. To deal with these two difficulties (to- vid José Kohon, 1958), set in Villa 31 in the Retiro
ken beneficence and declarative essentialism), I district, and Tire dié [Toss Me a Shilling] (Fernando
propose a methodology that consists of attentive Birri, 1960) in the city of Santa Fe. The visibility
viewing of his films and an interrogation aimed at of the villa miseria in the Argentine films of the
exploring their materiality, his work with spaces, period, both documentary and fiction, constitutes
gazes, bodies and temporalities. clear evidence of the public attention that these
peripheral spaces were attracting. In the years af-
DEPICTIONS OF THE VILLA MISERIA ter the military dictatorship, Buenos Aires, crónicas
villeras [Buenos Aires, Chronicles from the Slums]
Given that all of González’s films have a specific (Carmen Guarini and Marcelo Céspedes, 1986) not
agenda to challenge conventional film and televi- only outlined a history of squatter settlements in
sion depictions of squatter settlements and their the city, but also foreshadowed the challenge they
inhabitants, any analysis of his work should in- posed for democracy.

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The onset of the neoliberal crisis in 2001 re- with the stereotypes and it is out of this exchange
sulted in renewed population growth in the villas that their demythologising power emerges. How-
miseria and an equivalent increase in their visibil- ever, it should not be assumed that González’s
ity in society and in film and television produc- socio-economic background guarantees a count-
tions. This gave rise to a new panorama of social er-hegemonic depiction of the villa miseria. On the
reactions that ranged from the video activism of contrary, it is important to question this essen-
the Piquetero groups8 (Grupo Alavio and Ojo Obre- tialist stance and to interrogate the depictions of
ro, among others)9 to the bleak pessimism of White squatter settlements and their inhabitants pres-
Elephant (Elefante blanco, Pablo Trapero, 2012). ent in his films.
While in the productions of the activist groups
the villa miseria was less important than the po- DIAGNÓSTICO ESPERANZA
litical activity of the Piqueter omovement and its
leaders (Aguilar, 2012), in Elefante blanco the slum Diagnóstico esperanza [Diagnosis Hope], the first
dwellers serve as background characters in a feature film made by César González as part of
story featuring repentant members of the bour- the Todo Piola work collective, was filmed in the
geoisie (Veliz, 2017). Documentaries as varied as Barrio Ejército de los Andes neighbourhood (also
Bonanza (Bonanza [en vías de extinción], Ulises known as Fuerte Apache) in the city of Ciudade-
Rosell, 2001), Social Genocide (Memoria del saqueo, la, and in the Carlos Gardel de Morón neighbour-
Fernando Solanas, 2004) and Estrellas [Stars] (Fed- hood, both in the province of Buenos Aires. The
erico Leon and Marcos Martínez, 2007) also ex- landscape is comprised of run-down apartment
plored the subjective experiences of the casualties blocks and shapeless areas covered in debris. The
of neoliberal economic policy. topographical construction challenges the laby-
From Suburb through to White Elephant there rinthine spatial conception identified by Gonzalo
are two recurring approaches to the depictions of Aguilar (2012) as one of the most common clichés
villa miseria inhabitants: the first is to criminal- in films about villas miseria. The labyrinth usually
ise them, while the second is to victimise them. functions as a spatial representation of the spec-
Of course, not all filmmakers or films can be re- tator’s feeling of strangeness and otherness, but
duced to these two possibilities;in many cases, also as an embodiment of the idea that the char-
directors have attempted strategies aimed at acters find it difficult (or impossible) to escape
picking apart the stereotypes of the squatter as a from this confusing territory, with no centre or
criminal or victim and have effectively promot- order, which has grown without any regulation
ed transformations in the ways of looking at, lis- or planning. This representation of the labyrinth
tening to and thinking about these marginalised as a spatial symbol for the villa miseria is often
spaces. González’s films propose a depiction of the shown using an aerial view of the area. This al-
villa miseria that seeks to introduce a departure lows filmmakers to introduce a reference to the
from film representations that dehumanise and magnitude of the settlement, but also in some cas-
de-subjectivise its inhabitants. It is an approach es to its proximity to the central districts of city
that exposes the fact that squatters are conceived life. In contrast with these standardised depic-
of as creatures unable to reflect, lacking critical tions, Diagnóstico esperanza reconstructs a social
thinking skills and speaking only in slang (Berni- map that is not viewed from above, but through
ni, 2015: 134). To challenge this firmly established the movements of the characters. It is not a space
view, González attempts to construct an alter- mapped out using a top-down view that presents
native image. His films engage in active dialogue the network of dwellings from on high. Instead, it

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Spatial configuration in Diagnóstico esperanza (César González, 2013).

is a space experienced by its inhabitants and ob- down to a differential spatial realm from which
served through the wanderings of the young peo- they cannot escape, while at the same time they
ple who populate González’s stories. These char- are de-territorialised, allowed freedom to come
acters are not trapped in a labyrinth, although and go to the extent that the outside world sum-
they still have no way out. No desire to escape is mons them and expels them.
expressed, nor is any speculation or alternative In this territory of rubble lives a heteroge-
presented. In a representation that clearly knocks neous community. González’s films are articu-
down the myth of social mobility, the villa miseria lated as ensemble pieces that weave individual
is neither transitory nor a prison sentence; it is stories together in multiple structures. Notable in
presented as the experience of people positioned the proliferation of characters is the presence of
as the refuse of capitalism, individuals tossed children, teenagers and youth as protagonists. In
aside as casualties of the system. this respect, González emerges as an heir to the
This space is not isolated. The containment neorealist approach of positioning children in key
walls of social marginalisation fail to hold the in- roles in the story and choosing their gaze as the
habitants within them. Between the middle-class organising perspective for the perception of the
world and the squatter settlement we are shown social universe. Childhood is expressed here in its
bridges. This territorial composition constitutes utmost vulnerability. The absence of the State is
one of the main points of interest of Diagnóstico absolute. The transa11 mother who prepares the
esperanza: on the one hand, the space is present- bags with her daughters and refuses to accept
ed as a ghetto, as a place with no escape, whose that her son wants to be a musician embodies the
inhabitants are territorialised, imprisoned with- complexity of the relationships between adults
in its borders;on the other, these individuals not and children. The children are exploited, ignored,
only break through the boundaries of the settle- and abused. They are also in certain ways protect-
ment but are called out to provide manual labour ed, looked after, especially at the end of the film,
to the very members of the middle class who fear when González lingers on the face of the mother
them. This dialectic between opening and closing caressing her baby. This image and in the son’s
organises the narrative of the film.10 The inclusion desire to sing offer the only explanations for the
of the world outside the villa miseria allows other film’s hopeful title, as no clear information is pro-
phenomena to enter it: exploitation, the logic of vided in the film to justify it.
the marketplace, the operations of capitalism. In While the spatial composition and its inter-
this sense, the characters are territorialised, tied weaving with the development of the characters’

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subjectivity promote a shift in conventional con- plicit, in older youth the depiction is rather more
ceptions of Argentina’s villas miseria, the struc- complex. Among the youth, the delinquents con-
ture of this family suggests that stereotypes are stitute unorthodox personifications of victimisa-
operating in the film. As noted above, depictions tion. In this way, the film replicates the usual ste-
of the inhabitants of these peripheral neighbour- reotypes, while at the same time modifying them.
hoods tend to fall back on the same variations of Although the film’s dialogue with a genre
victimisation and criminalisation, and González structure results in the reintroduction of ste-
appears largely unable to escape this pattern. reotypes, the narrative is also broken up by the
This appropriation of the victim and criminal fleeting appearance of shots that disrupt the sto-
stereotypes is associated in part with the invoca- ry. Various scenes in the film are interrupted by
tion of the crime genre as one of the frameworks images showing other local situations which, al-
for the story. The film is constructed on the basis though not directly related to the story being told,
of the clichés of the noir police film, particularly constitute something like rough snapshots of the
noir films narrated from living conditions in the
the perspective of those settlement. These im-
organising the crime. DIAGNÓSTICO ESPERANZA ages come into conflict
On this point, in his RECONSTRUCTS A SOCIAL MAP with the narration. Al-
study of the crime genre THAT IS NOT VIEWED FROM ABOVE, though they do not con-
and its influence in Lat- BUT THROUGH THE MOVEMENTS tribute to its progression,
in America, Mempo OF THE CHARACTERS they tie in with the social
Giardinelli (2013) argues mapping of the story.
that the Latin American The scene in which two
noir film is no longer narrated from the point of youths plan a robbery cuts suddenly to footage
view of the law enforcers, but from those on the of a group of kids playing with an empty baby’s
wrong side of the law, in an approach that shows pram in a nearby rubbish dump. These images do
evidence of the dynamic of capitalist corruption. not function as an illustration of the dialogue or as
In this sense, Diagnóstico esperanza is structured an element interwoven into the narrative;on the
as a crime film about the edges of society, a sto- contrary, they undermine the continuity of the
ry in which the police organise crimes to be car- narration and break the linear progression of the
ried out by the villa miseria’s inhabitants. Rath- traditional crime story. These moments, marked
er than law and order, what is portrayed is the by obvious documentary pretensions, are placed
decay that has taken root within the institution at the service of a project of visibility.
of law enforcement itself. The squatters provide In this sense, in Diagnóstico esperanza César
the manual labour for criminal projects planned González relies on the aesthetic and political ef-
by the members of the middle class in collabora- fect of the presentation of these dilapidated spac-
tion with the police. At this point there emerges a es and their inhabitants and uses the tropes of the
notable ambiguity of the film: the use of the noir crime genre and its corresponding stereotypes as
police genre results in a wake-up call about the an excuse to render visible the social conditions
political and economic system, but at the same and experiences in the villa miseria. In this way,
time it effectively preserves the existing stereo- the depiction will supposedly lead to an inversion
types, albeit with slight alterations. The squatters of the symbolic weight of the stereotypes. The
are characterised as either victims or criminals. proposition of an unorthodox view of the settle-
While among the children the victimisation is ex- ment and the desire to show its inhabitants can be

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reasserted based on an assumption proposed by ¿QUÉ PUEDE UN CUERPO?

Jacques Rancière in The Intolerable Image: it is not
the horror in the images that needs to be explored In The Image of the Other, Victor Stoichita ex-
but the devices of visibility constructed to bring plores the clash between the development of the
that horror into view. It is here that the condition Western visual canon, expressed in the art of the
of the bodies and the kind of attention they war- Renaissance, and the emergence in that context
rant is revealed. In the gaze on these individuals, of the image of the Other. Through the analysis
we discover a device that chooses ways of show- of four predominant figures of otherness (“the
ing what was not seen. While the information Black”, “the Jew”, “the Gypsy” and “the Muslim”),
system presents nameless bodies that are objects Stoichita examines how this Other is constructed
of the words of others, with no access to speak for outside or on the edges of the image. Although in
themselves, Diagnóstico esperanza initiates a com- Renaissance art the Other does not constitute a
plex process of attentive viewing of the squatters’ focus of interest, a gradual process of giving vis-
bodies that focuses on prioritising their faces and ibility to difference began at that time. Stoichita
eyes. This effectively posits the squatters as sub- thus analyses the visual system within which this
jects of the gaze and not merely as beings objecti- redistribution of space and of the narrative val-
fied by an external perception. These eyes of the ue of the characters operates. However, he argues
villa miseria are what perceives the social universe that it is not enough to confirm that the inhabi-
depicted, and thus become generators of images, tants of the territory of the Other acquire greater
makers of spatial trajectories, and distributors of visibility, nor does he view this development as a
fields of observation.12 triumph for the representatives of Otherness. On
Diagnóstico esperanza begins a journey that the contrary, he determines to explore the devices
initially assumes the power to render things visi- of visibility constructed around these figures.
ble. César González articulates a story marked by The perspective suggested by Stoichita, like the
the urgent need to deconstruct the stereotypes approach taken by Rancière, represents a ques-
promulgated in mainstream media. In his appro- tioning of the ingenuousness of operations aimed
priation of a style of essay film, he constructs an at equating a mere assignment of visibility with an
argumentative structure that is presented as an effort to transform the social space. Stoichita is not
assertion. The film attests to the universe depict- convinced that making the Other visible inevitably
ed, its causes, and its relationship with the outside constitutes a disruptive act. Among the prolific va-
world. However, the allusions to the crime genre riety of works he explores is a famous drawing by
and the subversion of the stereotypes are desta- Dürer kept in the Print Room at the National Gal-
bilised with the introduction of a system of doc- lery in Berlin. In the foreground of Dürer’s drawing
umentary-style images that threaten the solidity is “the ideal profile of the Western man, a paradigm
of the story and through the presentation of the to which all the other heads present on the page
bodies, faces and eyes of the squatters. In this way, refer” (Stoichita, 2016: 37). Set against this model
the film is positioned in a conflictive territory of beauty and harmony is a vast display of “differ-
where the efforts to preserve the stereotype over- ences”, on a scale that leads finally to the head of a
lap with the efforts to undermine it. This suggests Black African. This work of Dürer’s, which antici-
that the fact that González originally belonged to pates the studies of racial physiognomy some cen-
this social universe does not inevitably mean that turies later, shows that the visibility of otherness
he will abandon conventional depictions of squat- can be used to confirm and reinforce pre-existing
ter settlements and their inhabitants. prejudices. The interpretation of visibility formu-

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lated by Stoichita should prompt us to reconsider in the depiction of the bodies and their overlap-
the narrative space assigned to the inhabitants of ping with the temporal flow.
the squatter settlements in González’s films, and to Even with its title, González’s second feature
explore the depiction of their bodies and the con- film makes its concern with the body explicit. The
struction of heterogeneous temporalities. In this title is an allusion to Baruch Spinoza’s analysis of
sense, we should not be asserting that the presence corporeality in his Ethics, published in 1677. Spi-
of the squatters represents a disruption of estab- noza reflects on the power of the body, given that
lished imagery, but studying the changes made in “no one has yet determined what the body can do.”
relation to their depiction. Gilles Deleuze (2015) suggests that Spinoza posits
González’s second film, ¿Qué puede un cuerpo? the body as a power and, therefore, as a political
(What Can a Body Do?), contains both continu- force. The body is capable of doing the opposite of
ities with and departures from the first. Notable what the system imposes.13 The Spinozan reflec-
among the continuities is the choice of the same tion leads González to reflect on what the squat-
geographical and socio-economic territory, the ters’ bodies feel. In contrast with the approach
use of technical instability as an aesthetic expres- taken in Diagnóstico esperanza, in ¿Qué puede un
sion of social fragility (this aspect also connects cuerpo? he gets up close to the characters’ bodies.
González with the “poor cinema” advocated by the From the beginning of the film, the body of the
Cuban filmmaker Humberto Solás, who founded cartonero14 blends in with the garbage, and among
a festival in Cuba in 2003 dedicated to exploring the garbage of the middle classes he finds a present
the democratisation of film production facilitated for his daughter. These bodies are thus framed in
by the expansion of digital technology and the re- a landscape of refuse, the waste of the consumer
duction of production costs;in this sense, pover- culture. This accompaniment of the cartonero on
ty of means constitutes an aesthetic and political his daily journey draws out a different corporeal-
stance), and the recurrence not only of certain ity and a different temporal flow. The body worn
actors, but even of the same character within the out by its work requires and establishes different
diegesis: Alan, the boy who had planned to be a system of time. This story cannot be told accord-
singer in Diagnóstico esperanza, confirms the fail- ing to the temporal flow of classical cinema, with
ure of his project in this second film, as we find its adherence to narrative action and climax. In-
that he has turned into a delinquent—a revelation
that effectively snuffs out the tiny glimmer of op- The body of the urban nomad in ¿Qué puede un cuerpo?
(César González, 2015).
timism that was practically the only justification
for the title of the first film. But alongside these
similarities are a number of notable differences.
In aesthetic terms, the filmmaker has dispensed
with both the extra-diegetic music and the spo-
radic use of black-and-white in the first film. On
the narrative level, there is a clear move away
from genre models and an exploration of a scat-
tered narrative approach, more attentive to the
trajectories than to the actions of the characters.
These differences result in a break with the partial
adherence to conventional stereotypes present in
the first film, a break that finds a privileged space

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 VANISHING POINTS

stead, it is a story told through the exploration of

the temporalities established by the bodies reject-
ed by capitalism. Beatriz Sarlo (2009) uses the idea
of “urban nomads” to analyse the particular qual-
ities of these bodies circulating around the social
structures. In their wanderings, these individuals
in movement become privileged spectators of the
universe that surrounds them and of which they
form part.
Together with the cartonero, the film returns
to the figure of the delinquent youth engaged
by the forces of repression to commit a robbery. Corpo-temporal imbrications in ¿Qué puede un cuerpo?
While the repetition of the figure of the delin- (César González, 2015).

quent maintains the reference to the crime genre,

the appearance of the body of the cartonero is
only possible through the assignment and config- tion of bodies and temporalities that cannot be
uration of a different temporal flow, marked by reduced to the prevailing models. The unproduc-
a detailed observation of his mechanical tasks, of tive moments of wandering, marked by the cri-
his movements around an urban and suburban sis of young bodies rejected from the productive
setting that takes him out of the squatter areas system; the moments of waiting experienced by
and back again, enabling him to bear witness to the tense bodies of the delinquents, the repetitive
the comfortable living conditions of the middle moments endured by the body of the cartonero.
and upper-middle classes. The presence of this In this explosion of bodies and attitudes, gestures
feeble body represents the destruction of the ste- and temporalities, the established stereotypes of
reotypes. It is thus not a question of giving vis- the squatter begin to blur. The fate of the bodies
ibility to the body or the space but constructing is also given a temporal association: the dead body
a device whereby the exposure of that body ef- of one of the delinquents, wrapped in a plastic bag;
fectively subverts a representative system that the incarcerated body of another; the free body of
depicts squatters as criminals or victims. This the cartonero, prepared to carry on to the point of
deconstruction operates by opening up other op- exhaustion.
portunities to overlap bodies and temporalities:
the wandering bodies of the children forced to CONCLUSIONS
beg for change in the street; the gang of kids who
clean windscreens; the underclass youth who In the journey he takes with his first two feature
spend their nights playing video games and tak- films, González maps out the social universe of the
ing drugs; the exhausted worker who continues villa miseria that deconstructs the outdated stereo-
to believe that the choice of an honest job is less types that continue to predominate. However, the
risky than a life of crime. analysis of these shifts does not require specula-
In this way, César González explores the strat- tion on his explicit intentions or the identification
egies of temporal configuration that bring a dif- of the aspects of his personal history that would
ferent corporeality into view, and in so doing, a give meaning to his aesthetic production. Instead,
radical deconstruction of the existing stereotypes. what is needed is an exploration of the material-
These stereotypes fall apart with the introduc- ity of a device that constructs a body-time-space

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 VANISHING POINTS

overlap. The emergence of other bodies inscribed whose first four issues were published while he was
in other spatial and temporal configurations re- still in jail; he also finished high school while in pris-
sults in a subversion of conventional depictions on; he published his first book, La venganza del corde-
that conceive of these marginalised individuals as ro atado [Revenge of the Tied-Up Lamb] in 2010, and
objects of study, and as a source of fear or of com- his second book, written after his release, Crónica de
miseration. The opening up of the power to con- una libertad condicional [Probation Chronicle] in 2011;
struct images and discourses and the expansion he chose the pseudonym Camilo Blajaquis in tribute
of the ability to look and listen are not associated to the Cuban revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos and
with an essentialist, fixed and stable identity, but Domingo Blajaquis, the member of the Peronist re-
with an aesthetic and political product in constant sistance whose murder in 1966 was documented by
evolution.  Rodolfo Walsh in ¿Quién mató a Rosendo? [Who Killed
Rosendo] (1969); he presented the program Alegría y
NOTES dignidad [Joy and Dignity], broadcast on the Encuen-
tro channel; he offered literary workshops in his villa
1 In Argentina, the term villa miseria is used to refer to miseria; he made his first short films with Martín Cés-
a type of shanty town or squatter settlement predom- pedes: El cuento de la mala pipa [The Story of the Bad
inated by substandard housing resulting from the ab- Pipe] (2011), Mundo aparte [World Apart] (2011) and
sence of urban and social planning on the part of the Condicional [Conditional] (2012); his first feature film,
State. Diagnóstico esperanza [Diagnosis Hope] was released
2 References to his personal history and his explicit in 2013; he directed all four episodes of the documen-
intentions can be found in reviews like “Período villa tary series Corte Rancho, broadcast on Encuentro; he
villa” by Gaspar Zimerman, Clarín, 18 July 2013, and made the short films Guachines and Truco in 2014; he
“El cuerpo como fuerza política” by Emanuel Respighi, released his second feature film, ¿Qué puede un cuer-
Página 12, 26 December 2014. po? [What Can a Body Do] in 2015; that same year he
3 Some of the details that comprise González’s biogra- published his third book of poems, Retórica al suspiro
phy are listed simply here: he was born in 1989 in the de queja [Rhetoric to a Sigh of Complaint] and he re-
villa miseria known as Carlos Gardel in the Morón dis- leased his third feature film, Exomologesis, in 2017.
trict of Greater Buenos Aires; he began taking hard 4 Numerous newspaper articles on González support
drugs in his early teens and turned to stealing at the this. These interviews range from reconstructions of
age of 14; he spent time in different reform schools his life story to discussions of his literary and/or film
and came to be what in Argentina is known as a output. In most cases, the reference to his identity as a
“pibe chorro” (young delinquent); he suffered a bullet “pibe chorro” or young delinquent in article headlines
wound in a shoot-out with the Buenos Aires police; make the centrality of the biographical dimension
he served five years in prison for a case of kidnap- explicit. Articles featured in the mass media include:
ping and extortion that he claims he did not commit; “Es más peligroso un pibe que piensa que un pibe que
during that time, he passed through various juvenile roba”, interview by Silvina Friera (Página 12, 18 Octo-
detention centres in the city of Buenos Aires (José de ber 2010), “La historia del ex pibe chorro que se con-
San Martín, Manuel Roca, Manuel Belgrano and Luis virtió en poeta”, interview by Valeria Vera (La Nación,
Agote) as well as the Ezeiza and Marcos Paz prisons; 3 November 2011), “La sociedad repite la lógica del pa-
during his time in Instituto Manuel Belgrano he met bellón” (Clarín, 14 July 2013), “Lo único que me queda
Patricio Montesano (a.k.a. Merok), a magic teacher es el arte”, interview by Leandro Arteaga (Página 12,
who encouraged him to read and reflect on life; this 10 September 2018). Publications in alternative media
led to the project to found the magazine Todo Piola, include: “¿Qué puede un cuerpo?, la segunda película

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 VANISHING POINTS

del ex pibe chorro César González” (Diario registra- to propose an alternative map of the city. The articles
do, 22 December 2014), “Si un villero exige un lugar published by Gonzalo Aguilar (2013) and Patricio Fon-
dentro del arte despierta sentimientos muy oscuros y tana (2013) are important for proposing a chronology
miserables”, interview by Santiago Brunetto (El furgón for the emergence of these spaces in Argentine cine-
magazine, 13 February 2017), “La construcción de la ma.
villeritud”, interview by Matías Máximo (Cosecha roja 6 Verbitsky used the expression for the first time in a
magazine, 8 September 2017). In academic journals, series of news articles published in Noticias gráficas in
“Rostros: una geometría del poder en el cine”, inter- 1953.
view by Eva Noriega (Kadin, estudios sobre cine y artes 7 In Cine y peronismo. El Estado en escena (2009), Clara
audiovisuales, 2017). Kriger recounts the difficulties faced to secure the re-
5 Andrea Cuarterolo (2009) offers an exhaustive anal- lease of the film. Raúl Apold, Perón’s public relations
ysis of Argentina’s political and social film history secretary, had expressed objections and suggested
covering the period from 1896 to 1933. He exploration some changes. As a result, an epilogue was added to
addresses the emergence of the first films to articulate show the settlement being transformed into a work-
a critical view of the social realities in the years fol- ing class neighbourhood by the Peronist government.
lowing Argentina’s centenary of independence (1910). This epilogue was eliminated after the coup d’état in
In this context, and although they were isolated cases 1955.
lacking continuity, a number of films appeared that 8 In the mid-1990s, groups of unemployed people in Ar-
explored troubling social issues, featured different gentina formed the Piquetero (picketing) movement,
forms of otherness as the protagonist of the story, which used the organisation of roadblocks as a form
mapped out alternatives to the conventional spaces, of protest. The first public expression of the Piquetero
or adopted the tradition of political satire. In some cas- movement was in 1996 in the towns of Cutral Có and
es, the concern with making the story told as realistic Plaza Huincul, in Patagonia, in response to mass lay-
as possible even led to the introduction of elements of offs by the oil company YPF.
documentary. Although social issues were addressed 9 The vast panorama of video activism included: El ros-
as early as Nobleza gaucha [Gaucho Nobility] (Eduar- tro de la dignidad, memoria del M. T. D. de Solano  [The
do Martínez de la Pera, Ernesto Gunche, Humberto Face of Dignity: Report on the Solano Unemployed
Cairo, 1915), in Juan Sin Ropa [Juan with No Clothes] Worker Movement] (Alavío Group, 2001); Piqueteros.
(Héctor Quiroga, Georges Benoit, 1919) class conflict Un fantasma recorre la Argentina [Piqueteros: A Ghost
was explored through a focus on the social conditions Is Haunting Argentina] (Ojo Obrero, 2001),  Argenti-
of the urban proletariat, thereby presenting a periph- nazo, comienza la revolución [Argentinazo: The Revo-
eral space that received very little attention in films lution Begins] (Ojo Obrero, 2002), Por un nuevo cine en
of the period in Argentina. The “folletines de arrabal” un nuevo país [For A New Cinema in a New Country]
(“slum melodramas”) directed by José Agustín Ferrey- (ADOC - Myriam Angueira and Fernando Krichmar,
ra, like Muchacha de arrabal [Slum Girl] (1922), La chica 2002),  Piqueteros carajo!  (la masacre de Puente Puey-
de la calle Florida [The Girl from Florida Street] (1922), rredón) [Piqueteros, Damn It! The Pueyrredón Bridge
and Mientras Buenos Aires duerme [While Buenos Ai- Massacre] (Ojo Obrero, 2002).
res Sleeps] (1924) reveal notable efforts to achieve re- 10 In this respect it is worth highlighting the contrast
alistic representations of the popular classes and their with the spatial arrangement present in the films of
living conditions. These films present a new face of José Celestino Campusano, another filmmaker inter-
the city of Buenos Aires that focuses on its most vul- ested in mapping peripheral spaces. In some of his
nerable neighbourhoods. All these pictures constitute films, like Twisted Romance (Vil romance, 2008), Vi-
foundational works in a tradition whose function was king (Viking, 2009) or Fango (2012), the squatter set-

L’ATALANTE 28  july - december 2019 168

 VANISHING POINTS

tlements of Greater Buenos Aires constitute closed Cuarterolo, A. (2009). Los antecedentes del cine político y
spaces that never come into dialogue with the world social en la Argentina (1896-1933). In A. Lusnich and
outside. P. Piedras (eds.), Una historia del cine político y social en
11 The Spanish expression transa refers to people who Argentina. Formas, estilos y registros (1896-1969) (pp.
sell narcotics in peripheral neighbourhoods. In the 145-172). Buenos Aires: Nueva Librería.
film, this character is played by Nazarena Moreno, Deleuze, G. (2015). En medio de Spinoza. Buenos Aires: Cac-
César González’s mother. tus.
12 The compositional work of visibility should be con- Fontana, P.(2013). Nadie sale vivo de acá. Sobre Suburbio,
trasted with the establishment of certain audibility de León Klimovsky. Informe escaleno, 9.
strategies. Diagnóstico esperanza begins with sounds Giardinelli, M. (2013). El género negro. Orígenes y evolución
of gunshots occurring off screen. In this way, while de la literatura policial y su influencia en Latinoamérica.
dispensing with the need to show it, a surrounding Buenos Aires: Capital intelectual.
environment of violence is suggested. The gunshot Kriger, C. (2009). Cine y peronismo. El Estado en escena.
establishes the space, providing an explicit soundtrack Buenos Aires: Siglo veintiuno.
for the villa miseria. The diegetic music confirms a Rancière, J. (2010a). La noche de los proletarios. Buenos Ai-
prejudice: the characters listen to hip hop and cumbia res: Tinta Limón.
villera, very obviously musical genres associated with — (2010b). El espectador emancipado. Buenos Aires: Ma-
Argentina’s underclass. In contrast with this predict- nantial.
able choice, the extra-diegetic music used by González Sarlo, B. (2009). La ciudad vista. Mercancías y cultura urba-
is from quite a different tradition: Bach, Mozart, Bee- na. Buenos Aires: Siglo veintiuno.
thoven. This sets up a tension between the image Spivak, G. (1987). In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Poli-
(social collapse, worn-out bodies) and the sound. The tics. London: Methuen.
music vests the image with new meaning and attri- Stoichita, V. (2016). La imagen del Otro. Negros, judíos, mu-
butes a new dignity to the devastated subjects. sulmanes y gitanos en el arte occidental en los albores de
13 The references to these concerns are embodied not la Edad Moderna. Madrid: Cátedra.
only in the title of the film, but also in the inclusion Veliz, M. (2017). Estrategias de visibilidad de la marginali-
of the book What Is Philosophy? by Deleuze, Guattari dad social en el cine latinoamericano contemporáneo.
and Kauf among the cardboard boxes that one of the Demarcaciones, 5, 1-19.
characters collects to sell.
14 Cartonero is the expression used in Argentina to refer
to people who pick cardboard boxes and other paper
derivatives out of the garbage they find on the city
streets in order to sell them.

REFERENCES

Aguilar, G. (2012). Las villas miseria en el cine argentino:

un elefante oculto atrás del vidrio. Grumo, 8, 15-35.
Bernini, E. (2015). Qué puede un lumpen. Gracia, justicias
y heterogeneidad. Kilómetro 111, 15, 130-142.
Bourriaud, N. (2009). Radicante. Buenos Aires: Adriana
Hidalgo.

L’ATALANTE 28  july - december 2019 169

 VANISHING POINTS

PERCEPTUAL DEVICES FOR DEPICTING DISPOSITIVOS DE PERCEPCIÓN DE LAS VILLAS

THE VILLA MISERIA IN THE FILMS OF CÉSAR MISERIA EN EL CINE DE CÉSAR GONZÁLEZ
GONZÁLEZ
Resumen
Abstract La exploración de las películas realizadas por el cineasta argentino
The exploration of the films of Argentine filmmaker César González César González (1989) supone una serie de dificultades de orden teó-
poses a series of theoretical and critical difficulties. First of all, it is im- rico y crítico. En primer lugar, conviene interrogar las causas por las
portant to examine the reasons why his socio-geographical origins, que su origen sociogeográfico, la «villa miseria» Carlos Gardel de la
in the Carlos Gardel squatter settlement in the province of Buenos provincia de Buenos Aires, aparece como referencia ineludible en los
Aires, is inevitably referred to in studies of his work, especially his estudios sobre su obra, en especial de sus largometrajes Diagnóstico
feature films Diagnóstico esperanza (2013) and ¿Qué puede un cuerpo? esperanza (2013) y ¿Qué puede un cuerpo? (2015). La recurrencia a al-
(2015). Concepts proposed by Gayatri Spivak, Nicolas Bourriaud, and gunas categorías propuestas por Gayatri Spivak, Nicolas Bourriaud
Jacques Rancière are adopted here to construct a valid theoretical y Jacques Rancière permitirá ordenar un contexto teórico válido
context for analysing the complexity of González's films. Secondly, para pensar la complejidad de esta producción cinematográfica. En
it is necessary to go beyond the filmmaker’s origins to explore the segundo lugar, resulta necesario explorar cuál es su potencia estéti-
aesthetic and political power of his work. In this respect, avoiding the co-política más allá del origen del realizador. En este sentido, lejos del
paternalism of other critical studies, this article aims to investigate paternalismo de ciertos posicionamientos críticos, aquí se pretende
the construction of a perceptual device concerned with overlapping indagar la composición de un dispositivo de percepción atento a la
bodies, spaces and temporalities. imbricación de los cuerpos, los espacios y los tiempos.

Key words Palabras clave

César González; Villa miseria; Bodies of the popular classes; Perceptu- César González; villa miseria; cuerpos populares; dispositivos de per-
al devices; Argentine cinema. cepción; cine argentino.

Author Autor
Mariano Veliz holds a PhD in history and art theory, a master’s in Mariano Veliz es doctor en Historia y Teoría de las Artes, magister
discourse analysis and a bachelor’s degree in combined arts from the en Análisis del Discurso y licenciado en Artes Combinadas por la Fa-
School of Philosophy and Humanities at Universidad de Buenos Ai- cultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Es
res (UBA). He is a professor in the humanities programs at UBA and docente en las carreras de Letras y Artes e investigador del Instituto
a researcher with the university’s Interdisciplinary Institute of Latin Interdisciplinario de Estudios sobre América Latina de dicha institu-
American Studies. His research and publications focus on the study ción. Sus investigaciones y publicaciones se dedican al estudio de la
of the depiction of otherness in contemporary Latin American cine- figuración de la otredad en el cine latinoamericano contemporáneo.
ma. Contact: [email protected]. Contacto: [email protected].

Article reference Referencia de este artículo

Veliz, M. (2019). Dispositivos de percepción de las villas miseria en el Veliz, M. (2019). Dispositivos de percepción de las villas miseria en
cine de César González. L'Atalante. Revista de estudios cinematográfi- el cine de César González. L'Atalante. Revista de estudios cinematográ-
cos, 28, 157-170. ficos, 28, 157-170.

Edita / Published by Licencia / License

ISSN 1885-3730 (print) /2340-6992 (digital) DL V-5340-2003 WEB www.revistaatalante.com MAIL [email protected]

L’ATALANTE 28  july - december 2019 170