Abstract
In this paper, Schwartz offers a gendered analysis of Mészáros’s most recent feature film [‘Aurora Borealis’]. She argues that the film presents a transnational narrative about repressed traumatic memories as they pertain to sexual and political violence dating back to the early 1950s. The film explores the effects of postmemory (Hirsch) through three generations across Hungary, Austria, Russia (the former Soviet Union), and present-day Spain. With the help of theories of trauma (Herman, Kaplan, Caruth, LaCapra) and through a close reading of the symbols and colors used in the film, Schwartz reflects on the healing potential of narrative recovery together with the role children born as a result of armed conflict can play in rethinking narratives of war and in exploring their own transnational bridge-building potential in the twenty-first century.
Highlights
In this paper, Schwartz offers a gendered analysis of Mészáros’s most recent feature film [‘Aurora Borealis’]
Praised by critics as a family drama, an important document of its period that contains the “black box of history” [a történelem feketedoboza] (Jankovics 2017: 50), the film explores the importance of breaking the silence surrounding painful memories when it comes to understanding the links between the present and the very cold phase of the Cold War in the early 1950s
I will argue that Mészáros’s film constructs a gendered transnational narrative, one that connects repressed traumatic memories about sexual and political violence going back to the early 1950s as they pertain to Hungary, Austria, and Russia, memories about events that have affected three generations across borders
Summary
Schwartz offers a gendered analysis of Mészáros’s most recent feature film [‘Aurora Borealis’]. I will argue that Mészáros’s film constructs a gendered transnational narrative, one that connects repressed traumatic memories about sexual and political violence going back to the early 1950s as they pertain to Hungary, Austria, and Russia (the former Soviet Union), memories about events that have affected three generations across borders.
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