El narcotráfico en el cine mexicano: arquetipos desde 2010 a 2017

This article studies the archetypes and the iconography in contemporary Mexican films that deal with drug trafficking in order to examine the evolution of the narco cinema subgenre and changes in the representation of the narcocultura. The corpus is constituted by the biggest box office hits each year between 2010 and 2017, which are analysed thematically. This study suggests that the characteristics of the narcocultura continue circulating within Mexican cinema, but it does not point to a subgenre’s existence. The genres circumscribing the films analysed promote the narcos’ heroism via archetypes and iconography, which symbolize how narcos overcome their modus vivendi to stand as a legitimate authority against a corrupt government. Alongside this representation of narcos, these films also present objectified women and promote values such as loyalty and family. The aforementioned archetypes and iconography offer a view of life in which violence is normalized, and crime is seen as a legitimate lifestyle.

The Two cines con niño: Genre and the Child Protagonist in Over Fifty Years of Spanish Film (1955–2010), Erin Hogan (2018)

Review of: The Two cines con niño: Genre and the Child Protagonist in Over Fifty Years of Spanish Film (1955–2010), Erin Hogan (2018) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 236 pp., ISBN 978-1-47443-611-3, h/bk, £75.00 and p/bk, £19.99

A re-visionist Her-story of De cierta manera ([1974] 1977): Reading Yoruba myth in Sara Gómez’s revolutionary classic1

Recent scholarship on Sara Gómez has expanded upon existing discourse on her work beyond her singular feature film, De cierta manera/One Way or Another ([1974] 1977) to examine not only her earlier documentary shorts of the 1960s, but to demonstrate the impact that her body of work has had on a subsequent generation of Cuban filmmakers who continue her mission to critique the Revolution through an antiracist and feminist lens – contemporary filmmakers such as Gloria Rolando, Sandra Gómez and Susana Barriga. This article seeks to push this conversation forward by arguing several interrelated points: (1) that De cierta manera contains symbolic, visually embedded references to a specific patakí (myth) about the Afro-Cuban orishas Ogun and Ochún; (2) that De cierta manera holds this in common with Gloria Rolando’s Oggun: An Eternal Presence (1991), which tells the patakí in a more explicit manner, and therefore the two films warrant comparison and (3) lastly, that this interpretation of De cierta manera offers a novel take on a ‘classic’ Cuban revolutionary film, offering additional interpretive layers that do not change the message of the film, per se, but complicate it by adding an additional filter through which to view and interpret it: that of Yoruba moral philosophy. The Afro-Cuban word patakí in Cuban Lucumí liturgical speech refers to a parable with a moral lesson, and is derived from the word pàtàkì, which means ‘[something] important’ in the Yorùbá language of West Africa. This article will attempt to answer how and why this particular myth is ‘important’ (pàtàkì) to the reading of De cierta manera and argue for a broader re-centring and privileging of African-derived philosophical frameworks within Cuban intellectual history and popular culture.

Disability in Spanish-speaking and U.S. Chicano Contexts: Critical and Artistic Perspectives, Dawn Slack and Karen L. Rauch (eds) (2019)

Review of: Disability in Spanish-speaking and U.S. Chicano Contexts: Critical and Artistic Perspectives, Dawn Slack and Karen L. Rauch (eds) (2019) Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 224 pp., ISBN 978-1-52752-750-8, h/bk, £61.99

Del mito gaucho al mito peronista: la decadencia del cine criollista en La cabalgata del circo (Soffici 1945)

The article explores the decline of Criollista cinema during early Peronism, based on the study of Mario Soffici’s 1945 film La cabalgata del circo/Circus Cavalcade and the political circumstances around it, including Eva Duarte’s performance, the violent incidents during the premiere and the role of the censorship. The central hypothesis is that the film inaugurates a kind of symbolic relay: Peronism appropriates nineteenth-century emblems such as the gaucho myth or the romantic woman, and incorporates them into the emerging Peronist myth. This gives the Criollista cinema of the time the tone of a retreating criollismo, which is articulated as a second degree nostalgia: if criollismo was always marked by nostalgia for a pre-modern golden age, La cabalgata del circo reveals a nostalgia for that nostalgia, given that it is not only a Criollista story but also a history of criollismo. The research is based on the analysis of the film, its links with the historical-political context and the way it adapts the Criollista novel Juan Cuello, written by Eduardo Gutiérrez in 1880.

La conquista del espacio: cine silente uruguayo (1915–32), Georgina Torello (2018)

Review of: La conquista del espacio: cine silente uruguayo (1915–32), Georgina Torello (2018) Montevideo: Editorial Yaugurú, 276 pp., ISBN 978-9-97489-027-5, p/bk

Narcos in Jesús María: Dystopian empowerment in the amateur exploitation film Corazón cubano/Cuban Heart (2014)

This article analyses the film Corazón cubano/Cuban Heart (Liyuen Valdés 2014), a story about drug traffickers in the Jesús María neighbourhood of Havana, circulated only through the Paquete Semanal (Weekly Package). Examining the creators’ symbolic identification with the figure of the narco, this article explores Corazón as an example of amateur, alternative and informal media within the Paquete and its relationship with exploitation, cult and trash cinema. It argues that Corazón’s appropriation of narconarratives through reparteros (the inhabitants of Havana’s peripheric and poorest neighbourhoods) is linked to the relationship between reparteros, rap and reggaeton and points to the filmmakers’ will to combine social criticism and entertainment. Corazón also reproduces controversial practices and discourses like ‘necroempowerment’ (Valencia) or ‘fascinating violence’ (Valencia and Sepúlveda), developing dystopian empowerment by appropriating the narco as a ‘cultural persona’ (Edberg).

Cinema against Doublethink: Ethical Encounters with the Lost Pasts of World History, David Martin-Jones (2019)

Review of: Cinema against Doublethink: Ethical Encounters with the Lost Pasts of World History, David Martin-Jones (2019) London and New York: Routledge, 258 pp., ISBN 978-1-13890-795-9, pbk, £27.99

Ciudad y fantasmagoría: dimensiones de la mirada en el cine urbano de Latinoamérica del siglo XXI, Carolina Rueda (2019)

Review of: Ciudad y fantasmagoría: dimensiones de la mirada en el cine urbano de Latinoamérica del siglo XXI, Carolina Rueda (2019) Santiago: Editorial Cuarto Propio, 392 pp., ISBN 978-956-396-046-4, p/bk, Chilean pesos 15.00

The Films of Jess Franco, Antonio Lázaro-Reboll and Ian Olney (eds) (2018)

Review of: The Films of Jess Franco, Antonio Lázaro-Reboll and Ian Olney (eds) (2018) Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 363 pp., ISBN 978-0-81434-316-6, p/bk, $29.99; ISBN 978-0-81434-493-4, h/bk, $84.99; ISBN 978-0-81434-317-3, eBook, $24.99