Affective Realism and the Brand New Brazilian Cinema

Abstract

Abstract. The restricted vocabulary that is often applied to discuss Contemporary Brazilian Cinema (aesthetics of hunger, marginality, national allegory, identity, bad consciousness) reveals a sort of generalizing approach that ignores the lms' singularities and overlooks diverse af liations. Works by young Brazilian lmmakers such as Irmãos Pretti, Eduardo Valente, Rodrigo Siqueira, and Sérgio Borges are a real challenge for the critic inasmuch as they escape this vocabulary and propose other questions. The lms made by this young generation bypass traditional themes like urban violence and historical revisionism, thus demanding we rethink the political potency of Brazilian Cinema. Moreover, these lms are not concerned with images of Brazil, pointing out to a post-identity politics that go beyond narratives of nation, class, or gender. This proposal aims at discussing this Brand New Brazilian Cinema (Novísssimo Cinema Brasileiro) and its affective realism. No longer a referent for a sociological truth about Brazilian society, realism is taken as something that the image does, i.e., as an affect that challenges the viewer's response-ability. This paper discusses two lms (No meu lugar [Eye of the Storm, Eduardo Valente, 2009] and O céu sobre os ombros [The Sky Above, Sérgio Borges, 2010]) in order to assess the political relevance of the notion of realism, in its relationship with affect.