The Return to the Sertão and Patagonia

Abstract

Some recent films have testified to the consequences of the adoption of neoliberalism by depicting characters who reject Buenos Aires in order to go to a European country (Martín [Hache]), to the “margins” of the nation (Born and Bred, A Place in the World), or a neighboring country (Lion’s Den; The Fish Child ). Sometimes this rejection takes place only at a discursive level, as is the case with Lost Embrace . However, in films like Lost Embrace, Martín (Hache) , and Born and Bred , the male protagonist comes back or gives up his plans to leave Buenos Aires as soon as there is a reconciliation of the family unit, which involves the return of the father of the protagonist or the protagonist himself as the father. In arguing that “not only do Buenos Aires residents attribute national significance to what happens in their native city but also even researchers extrapolate to the country at large empirical data collected exclusively in the port city,” Grimson and Kessler (2005: 24) suggest that Buenos Aires often stands for the nation. Therefore, the return of the father to Buenos Aires, or literally to the nation (fatherland) as in Lost Embrace and Martín (Hache) (although Hache’s father remains in Spain at the end of the film, he rushes to Buenos Aires to see Hache after the teenager’s overdose and invites him to go to Madrid with him, making reconciliation possible) reveals that those films are implicated in a dual effort to chart the fragmentation of narratives of nationhood and their subsequent reconstruction. The idea that parents do not see a viable future for their children in their homelands is stressed by the negative comments that Mart í n makes about Argentina and the fact that he is not willing to return.