The photography’s mise-en-film in three Brazilian documentaries

Abstract

This paper analyzes the ways the photography (as a remembering device) is put into play in three recent movies of Brazilian cinema, understanding it as a trace of the presence of something that has already become absent. The aim is to discuss how images taken from family albums can support the narrative construction that unfolds the life of ordinary men and women, either realistic or imagined by the documentary. Moreover, based on different methodologies, this paper examines the political and aesthetical exercise of a lm-making. This analysis exposes the weaknesses and possible frustrations in the reconstruction of the remote (the character's point of view) and the unknown (the authors' point of view), even if the image in the act of remembrance is materially present.