Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Revisiting Modernity Through the Latin American Road Movie

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Latin American Road Movie

Part of the book series: Global Cinema ((GLOBALCINE))

Abstract

This article builds on Vivian Schelling’s classification of processes of modernity to propose that there are types of road movies in Latin America. First, there are “counter-conquest road movies” that ideologically invert the historical route of the conquest, like Walter Salles’s Diarios de motocicleta (2004) and Fernando Solanas’s El viaje (1992). Second, there is another strand that sheds a critical light on developmental as well as revolutionary projects, as in the Brazilian Iracema (Jorge Bodanzky and Orlando Senna, 1974), the Chilean Huacho (Alejandro Fernández Almendras, 2009), and the Cuban Guantanamera (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, 1995). Finally, a third set such as La jaula de oro (Diego Quemada-Diez, 2013) and Sin nombre (Cary Fukunaga, 2007) focuses on movements across national borders, allowing the audience to delve into the difficult journeys of undocumented migrants.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 100.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Work Cited

  • Agamben, Giorgio. 1998. Homo Sacer. Sovereign power and bare life. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archer, Neil. 2013. The French road movie: Space, mobility, identity. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Augé, Marc. 1992. Non-lieux. Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité. Paris: Seuil. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakthine, Mikhaïl. 1978. Esthétique et théorie du roman. Paris: Gallimard. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Zygmunt. 2004. Wasted lives. Modernity and its outcasts. Cambridge: Polity Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bertelsen, Martin. 1991. Roadmovies und Western. Ein Vergleich zur Genre-Bestimming des Roadmovies. Hamburg: LIT Verlag. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brandellero, Sara (ed.). 2013. The Brazilian road movie. Journeys of (self) discovery. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohan, Steven, and Ina Rae Hark (eds.). 1997. The road movie book. London/New York: Routledge. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Domingues, José Mauricio. 2008. Latin America and contemporary modernity. A sociological interpretation. London/New York: Routledge. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ďuroviĉová, Nataša, and Kathleen Newman (eds.). 2010. World cinemas, transnational perspectives. London/New York: Routledge. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dussel, Enrique. 1995. The invention of the Americas: Eclipse of ‘the Other’ and the myth of modernity. New York: Continuum. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franco, Jean. 2013. Cruel modernity. Durham/London: Duke University Press. Print.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • García Canclini, Néstor. 2000. Contradictory modernities and globalization in Latin America. In Through the kaleidoscope. The experience of modernity in Latin America, ed. Vivian Schelling, 37–52. London/New York: Verso. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gott, Michael, and Thibaut Schilt (eds.). 2013. Open roads, closed borders. The contemporary French-language road movie. Bristol/Chicago: Intellect-University of Chicago Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerouac, Jack. 1997. On the road. New York: Viking. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klinger, Barbara. 1997. The road to dystopia. Landscaping the nation in Easy rider. In The road movie book, ed. Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, 179–203. London/New York: Routledge. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laderman, David. 2002. Driving visions. Exploring the road movie. Austin: University of Texas Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larrain, Jorge. 2011. Identity and modernity in Latin America. Cambridge: Polity Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lie, Nadia. 2011. Destino: La Habana. Guantanamera y la road movie cubana. In Pensar las revoluciones: Procesos políticos en México y Cuba, ed. Enrique Camacho Navarro, 123–138. México: UNAM. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindsay, Claire. 2010. Contemporary travel writing of Latin America. London/New York: Routledge. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mazierska, Ewa, and Laura Rascaroli. 2006. Crossing new Europe. Postmodern travel and the European road movie. London: Wallflower Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moser, Walter. ed. 2008. Le road movie interculturel. Special issue of Cinéma. Revue d’Etudes Cinématographiques/Journal of Film Studie s 18(2, 3): 7–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble, Andrea. 2005. Seeing the other through film. From Y tu mamá también to Qué Viva México! and back again. In Mexican national cinema, 123–146. London/New York: Routledge. Print

    Google Scholar 

  • Orgeron, Devin. 2008. Road movies. From Muybridge and Méliès to Lynch and Kiarostami. New York/Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pérez, Jorge. 2011. Cultural roundabouts. Spanish film and novel on the road. Lanham: Bucknell University Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinazza, Natália. 2014. Journeys in Argentine and Brazilian cinema. Road films in a global era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Print.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rodríguez-Mangal, Edna. 2002. Driving a dead body through the nation: Death and allegory in the film Guantanamera. Chasqu 31(1): 50–61. Print.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roy, Maya. 2002. Cuban music. From son and rumba to the Buena Vista Social Club and timba cubana. London/Princeton: Latin American Bureau/Markus Wiener Publishers. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sadlier, Darlene. 2013. Leaving home in three films by Walter Salles. In The Brazilian road movie. Journeys of (self) discovery, ed. Sara Brandellero, 145–161. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sargeant, Jack, and Stephanie Watson (eds.). 1999. Lost highways. An illustrated history of road movies. London: Creation Books. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, Deborah. 2003. Representing inequalities. The voyage by Fernando Solanas and I, the worst of all by María Luisa Bemberg. Contemporary cinema of Latin America: 10 key films, 105–141. New York/London: Continuum. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, Deborah. 2013. Cuarón finds his own path: Y tu mamá también. The three amigos. The transnational filmmaking of Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, 176–200. Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shelling, Vivian. 2000. Introduction: Reflections on the experience of modernity in Latin America. In Through the kaleidoscope. The experience of modernity in Latin America, ed. V. Shelling, 1–33. London/New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Paul-Julian. 2012. Transnational cinemas; The cases of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. In Theorizing world cinema, ed. Lucía Nagib, Chris Perriam, and Rajinder Dudrah, 63–76. London/New York: Tauris. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solnit, Rebecca. 2001. Wanderlust: A history of walking. London: Penguin. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tal, Tzvi. 1998. Del cine-guerrilla a lo “grotético”: La representación cinematográfica del latinoamericanismo en dos films de Fernando Solanas: La hora de los hornos y El viaje. Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 9(1): n. pag. Web.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tompkins, Cynthia. 2013. Experimental Latin American cinema. History and aesthetics. Austin: University of Texas Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torres, Galo Alfredo. 2014. La odisea latinoamericana. Vuelta al continente en ochenta películas. Cuenca: Los APUS. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trumper, Ricardo, and Patricia Tomic. 2009. The Chilean way to modernity: Private roads, fast cars, neoliberal bodies. In Car troubles. Critical studies of automobility and auto-mobility, ed. Jim Conley and Arlene Tigar MacLaren. Farnham: Ashgate. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vieira, Joao Luiz. 2013. Women on the road: Sexual tourism and beyond. In The Brazilian road movie. Journeys of (self) discovery, ed. Sara Brandellero, 199–214. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Claire. 2007. Diarios de Motocicleta as Pan-American Travelogue. In Contemporary Latin American cinema: Breaking the global market, ed. Deborah Shaw, 11–27. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, Jason. 1997. 100 road movies. London: BFI Screen Guides. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xavier, Ismael. 1997. Allegories of underdevelopment: Aesthetics and politics in modern Brazilian cinema. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. Print.

    Google Scholar 

Filmography

  • Latin American Road Movies Cited

    Google Scholar 

  • A ojos cerrados. 2010. Dir. Hernán Jiménez. Costa Rica: Miel y Palo Films, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amigomío. 1995. Dir. Jeanine Meerapfel. Arg.-Germ: Malena Films, Telefilm Saar & Chelko Producciones, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Árido Movie. 2005. Dir. Lírio Ferreira. Brazil: Cinema Brasil Digital, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bombón, el perro. 2004. Dir. Carlos Sorín. Argentina: Guacamole Films, OK Films & Wanda Visión, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cabeza de vaca. 1991. Dir. Nicolás Echevarría. Mex.-Sp.-USA: American Playhouse, Channel Four, Cooperative José Revueltas, TVE et al., DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • De jueves a domingo. 2012. Dir. Dominga Sotomayor. Chile: Cinestación, Forastero & Circe Films, DVD

    Google Scholar 

  • Diarios de motocicleta. 2004. Dir. Walter Salles. Arg.-Br.-USA: Filmfour, South Fork Pictures & Tu Vas Voir Productions, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • El chico que miente. 2010. Dir. Marité Ugás. Venezuela: Sudaca Films, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • El último tren. 2002. Dir. Diego Arsuaga. Uruguay: OK Films, Patagonik Film Group & Rambla Producciones, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • El viaje. 1992. Dir. Fernando Solanas. Argentina: Canal Plus, Cinesur, Tv. Española et al., DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guantanamera. 1995. Dir. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. Cuba: Tornasol Films, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hija. 2011. Dir. María Paz González. Chile: Flor Rubina, Francisco Hervé & María Paz González, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huacho. 2009. Dir. Alejandro Fernández Almendras. Chile: Jirafa Films, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Iracema. Uma transa Amazônica. 1975. Dir. Jorge Bodansky & Orlando Senna. Brazil: Stop Film, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Japón. 2002. Dir. Carlos Reygadas. Mexico: No Dream Cinema & Mantarraya Producciones, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • La jaula de oro. 2013. Dir. Diego Quemada-Díez. Mex.-Sp.-USA: Machete Producciones, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • La misma luna. 2007. Dir. Patricia Riggen. Mexico: Creando Films & Fidecine, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lake Tahoe. 2008. Dir. Fernando Eimbcke. Mexico: Cinepantera, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Los muertos. 2004. Dir. Lisandro Alonso. Argentina: 4L, Fortuna Films & Slot Machine, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Los tres entierros de Melquiades Estrada. 2005. Writ. Guillermo Arriaga. Dir. Tommy Lee Jones. Mexico-USA: Javelina Film Company & EuropaCorp, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Los viajes del viento. 2009. Dir. Ciro Guerra. Colombia: Ciudad Lunar, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miel para Oshún. 2001. Dir. Humberto Solás. Cuba: El Paso Prod. Cinematográficas, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Música Campesina. 2011. Dir. Alberto Fuguet. Chile-USA: Cinepata, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pancho Villa aquí y allí. 2008. Dir. Matías Geilburt & Paco Ignacio Taibo II. Mexico: Anima Films & The History Channel Latinoamerica. DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pescador. 2011. Dir. Sebastián Cordero. Ecuador: Contento Films & Kilotoa Films, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Qué tan lejos. 2006. Dir. Tania Hermida. Ecuador: Corp. Ecuador para Largo, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Retratos en un mar de mentiras. 2010. Dir. Carlos Gaviria. Colombia: Producciones Erwin Goggel, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sin nombre. 2009. Dir. Cary Fukunaga. USA-Mexico: Canana Films & Primary Productions, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tan de repente. 2002. Dir. Diego Lerman. Argentina: Lita Stantic Producciones & Nylon Cine, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Terra estrangeira. 1996. Dir. Walter Salles & Daniela Thomas. Brazil: VideoFilmes, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turistas. 2006. Dir. Alicia Scherson. Chile: La Ventura & Visions Sud Est, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Y tu mamá también. 2001. Dir. Alfonso Cuarón. Mexico: Producciones Anhelo, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Other Road Movies Cited

    Google Scholar 

  • Auf der anderen Seite. 2007. Dir. Fatih Akin. Germany: Anka Film & Dorje Film, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eldorado. 2008. Dir. Bouli Lanners. Belgium: Versus Production & Lazennec Productions, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grapes of wrath. 1940. Dir. John Ford. USA: Twentieth Century Fox, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Strada. 1954. Dir. Federico Fellini. Italy: Ponti de Laurentiis Cinematografica, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • My blueberry nights. 2007. Dir. Wong Kar-Wai. Taiwan: Block 2 Pictures, Jet Tone Production & Lou Yi Ltd., DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • On the road. 2012. Dir. Walter Salles. USA-Fr.: Jerry Leider Company, Vanguard Films & Film4, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Take care of your scarf, Tatjana. 1994. Dir. Aki Kaurismäki. Finland: Sputnik, Pandora Filmproduktion & Yleisradio, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taste of cherry. 1997. Dir. Abbas Kiarostami. Iran: Abbas Kiarostami Productions, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • They live by night. 1948. Dir. Nicholas Ray. USA: RKO Radio Pictures, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wild strawberries. 1957. Dir Ingmar Bergman. Sweden: Svensk, DVD.

    Google Scholar 

  • You only live once. 1937. Dir. Fritz Lang. USA: Walter Wanger Productions, DVD

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Literature, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Nadia Lie

Authors
  1. Nadia Lie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Spanish, The University of Kansas , Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    Verónica Garibotto

  2. University of Kansas , Lawrence, USA

    Jorge Pérez

Copyright information

© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lie, N. (2016). Revisiting Modernity Through the Latin American Road Movie. In: Garibotto, V., Pérez, J. (eds) The Latin American Road Movie. Global Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58093-1_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation