Politics of Architecture in Contemporary Argentine Cinema by Amanda Holmes

Abstract

Reviewed by: Politics of Architecture in Contemporary Argentine Cinema by Amanda Holmes Paul Merchant Holmes, Amanda. Politics of Architecture in Contemporary Argentine Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 162 pp. ISBN: 978-3-319-55191-3. In this study of the political role played by architecture in six Argentine fiction films, Amanda Holmes contends that “[i]n Argentine cinema since the mid-1990s, architecture has become a political signifier of contemporary socioeconomic conditions” (2). After this point in Argentine history, Holmes argues, architecture on film largely abandons representational or symbolic functions, but rather evokes political and nostalgic memories, marks economic marginalization, and explores the possibility of community in an increasingly fragmented urban context. The book makes a persuasive case for its focus on politics and architecture as a means of elucidating the social significance of the works studied. It is surprising, therefore, that there is no fuller consideration of the changing relations between Argentine cinema, society and the state in the period covered, or of the circulation of the films themselves. There are hints of this in the discussion of media landscapes in Chapter 6, but it could have been productively extended into other areas of the analysis. The films selected cover a range of genres and geographical locations, from Buenos Aires to Salta and Patagonia: Pizza, birra, faso (Caetano and Stagnaro 1997), Mundo grúa (Trapero 1999), Nueve reinas (Bielinsky 2000), La niña santa (Martel 2004), La antena (Sapir 2007), and El hombre de al lado (Cohn and Duprat 2009). This selection allows the author to address topics including the intersection of architecture and the media, class divisions, and globalization. There is, however, relatively little consideration of relations between these films, either in the introduction or in the main chapters: it is strange, for example, that the shared interested in hotel spaces in Nueve reinas and La niña santa is not addressed more fully. A reader might also wonder, given the book’s stated aim of addressing “contemporary” Argentine cinema, why the corpus reaches only 2009, and consists in large part of films that have already garnered significant critical attention. Briefer reference is made to other works, including Buenos Aires vice versa (Agresti 1996) and Medianeras (Taretto 2011), but one is nonetheless left with the impression that a different selection of material might have strengthened the book’s principal arguments. It is surprising, given the importance of gated communities in the framing of the arguments in the introduction and conclusion, that cinematic representations of these are not dealt with more fully. The analysis makes good use of historical detail (for instance in its evocation of the past of the Hotel Termas in Salta in Chapter 5, and the discussion of the Obelisco in Chapter 2). This information grounds the close readings of the films, which [End Page 176] are attentive to formal detail and make original observations. The book draws on a range of critical writing concerning the relationship between film and architecture, with the evocation of Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin in the discussion of Nueve reinas (Chapter 4) being particularly effective. The author’s relationship to existing critical writing on Argentine cinema of this period is somewhat less productive: the analysis draws quite heavily on existing readings, especially those of Joanna Page (Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema, 2009), and does not always make clear how these are being built upon or contested. The clarity of the author’s argument is, at times, hampered by awkward expression: take, for example, the statement that films such as Los rubios (Carri 2003) and Bar El Chino (Burak 2003) are “characterized” by “distinctions between documentary and fiction” (5), when it is rather a blurring of the boundary between these categories that emerges most strongly in the films cited. There is, nonetheless, considerable value in the book’s conclusion that architecture in films from this period points towards new forms of community, family, and social interaction, which resonates with James Scorer’s discussion of inclusive urban futures in Argentine culture (City in Common, 2016). Holmes’s book will be of use to students of Argentine culture and Latin American cinema, especially for its integration of historical architectural detail. Its conclusions...