‘Intimacy and Distance' - domestic servants in Latin American women’s cinema: La mujer sin cabeza and El niño pez

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

The chapter begins by setting the contextual framework through a discussion of domestic service in Latin America from a sociological perspective in order to examine the specific circumstances in Latin America that the films are responding to. This will be followed by what I argue is a new thematic genre of filmmaking, Latin American films featuring maids, and I discuss recent films that fit within this genre and consider the ways in which new social, aesthetic and political visions are emerging with the films’ explorations of the class-riven private spaces of the home. The overview of films will be provided, as this is a little-studied, yet increasingly significant, area of film production that reconstitutes the key focus points for a new cultural politics. I then anlayse two complementary yet distinct visions of the relationship between servants and employers: Lucía Martel’s pessimistic realist La mujer sin cabeza/The Headless Woman (2008) and Lucía Puenzo’s utopian queer El niño pez/The Fish Child (2009).
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLatin American Women Filmmakers: Production, Politics, Poetics
EditorsDeborah Martin, Deborah Shaw
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherI. B. Tauris
Pages123-148
Number of pages27
ISBN (Electronic)9781786731722, 9781786721723
ISBN (Print)9781784537111
Publication statusPublished - 23 Mar 2017

Publication series

NameWorld Cinema
PublisherI. B. Tauris

Keywords

  • Latin American cinema
  • Latin American women directors
  • Domestic servants

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