The Screened Self: The Diaristic Mode of Cinematic Remembering

This chapter focuses on a specific category that gained prominence first in Chile and Argentina and subsequently in Brazil: first-person, autobiographical documentaries that employ what I refer to as the diaristic mode of remembering. As I explain, this mode has arisen as the result of filmmakers’ desire to innovate the language of documentary in line with wider, international tendencies. A key feature of diaristic films is the juxtaposition of material sourced from both personal and public archives, and an understanding that both constitute relevant sources of the director’s enquiry into the past. Hence, handwritten letters become just as valuable as official documentation, and family photos receive the same historical weight as newspaper clippings. This juxtaposition points to the thematic crux of all diaristic films: the intricate connections they establish between the private and public, the personal and political, the intimate and collective. In other words, these films tell us about the long-lasting, wide-ranging effects of political violence on the lives of the filmmaker and her family, but without losing sight of their wider social implications. They document their directors’ quest to reintegrate families severed by the dictatorship and come to terms with the irrevocable losses it has caused, all the while reminding us that despite its uniqueness, the story of one family torn asunder by the dictatorship echoes the stories of many others. I illustrate this mode with reference to numerous films before focusing three case studies: El (im)possible olvido/The (Im)Possible Forgetting (Andrés Habegger, 2016), El color del camaleón/The Colour of the Chameleon (Andrés Lübbert, 2017) and Fico te devendo uma carta sobre o Brasil/I Owe You a Letter About Brazil (Carol Benjamin, 2019).