Nostalgic Materialism: Crisis and Memory in Mercedes Álvarez's Mercado de futuros

Abstract

Mercedes Álvarez's 2011 documentary, Mercado de futuros, is part of a growing body of cultural production in Spain that takes up the effects of the 2008 global financial crisis as a central theme. The film confronts contemporary conditions of economic precarity, focusing on the spaces of boom and bust, construction and ruin. Formally, the film offers a resistance to market logic, as Álvarez rejects commercial cinematic and narrative conventions through a hybrid form of creative documentary. Furthermore, in engaging with objects and space as her central protagonists, Álvarez eschews a narrative of subjectivity and practices what I will call nostalgic materialism. The film cherishes objects as fragments of memory over the logic of the market that obliterates memory in the name of progress. In doing so, Álvarez privileges nostalgia over narrative drive and opens up space for contemplation and resistance.