Confronting the Silences of History: Licínio Azevedo’s Virgem Margarida and Comboio de Sal e Açúcar

Abstract

Through fictional portrayals of events that, though based on historical fact, have either been forgotten or marginalised by Frelimo’s process of nation building in the aftermath of the Civil War, Licínio Azevedo’s films Virgem Margarida (2012) and Comboio de Sal e Açúcar (2016) engage with political tensions that are rooted in the past yet continue to affect contemporary Mozambican society. Both films examine the ways in which authority figures, whether explicitly representing the government or not, attempt to control the thoughts and actions of those whom they consider subordinate to them. Specifically, Azevedo casts a critical eye on the ideological training of both citizenry and soldiers that Frelimo considered fundamental to the creation of a new Mozambican society. This study contends that, through these films, Azevedo is engaging in the politics of memory by contesting the official historical version of events. In some cases, this involves presenting a vision of the past that contradicts official history, while, in others, this involves focusing on aspects of the past that official history has chosen to forget. In doing so, Azevedo engages with a discourse concerning the manipulation of official history by those in power.