Devices of perception of the villas miseria in the cinema of César González

Abstract

The exploration of the films made by the Argentine filmmaker César González (1989) involves a series of theoretical and critical difficulties. In the first place, it is convenient to examine the causes by which his socio-geographical origin, the «villa miseria» Carlos Gardel of the province of Buenos Aires, appears as an inescapable reference in the studies on his work, especially his feature films Diagnóstico esperanza (2013) and ¿Qué puede un cuerpo? (2015). The recurrence to some categories proposed by Gayatri Spivak, Nicolas Bourriaud, and Jacques Rancière will allow us to put in order a valid theoretical context to think about the complexity of this cinematographic production. Secondly, it is necessary to explore what is its aesthetical-political power beyond the filmmaker’s origin. In this sense, far from the paternalism of certain critical positions, here we intend to investigate the composition of a perception device attentive to the imbrication of bodies, spaces and times.